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“ Inside the shop was Festus Clasby himself.” 











WAYSIDERS 

\ 

STORIES OF CONNACHT 


By/ 

Seumas O’Kelly 


Author of 

“ The Shuiler’s Child," “ The Lady 
of Deerpark “ The Bribe," Ac. 



NEW YORK 

FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 


MCMXVIU 



Printed at 

ctie CAtt>oc pness 

89 Talbot Street 
Dublin 

a . 

iafefci 

AUQ 22 »lf 



Contents 


Page 

1 

34 


The Can with the Diamond Notch 
Both Sides of the Pond 
The White Goat 54 

The Sick Call 69 

The Shoemaker 85 

The Rector 104 

The Home-Coming 113 

A Wayside Burial 128 

The Gray Lake 140 

The Building 


173 



THE CAN WITH THE 
DIAMOND NOTCH 

I 



HE name stood out in chaste 
white letters from the black 
background of the signboard. 
Indeed the name might be 
said to spring from the 
landscape, for this shop jumped from its 
rural setting with an air of aggression. It 
was a commercial oasis on a desert of grass. 
It proclaimed the clash of two civilisations. 
There were the hills, pitched round it like 
the galleries of some vast amphitheatre, 
rising tier upon tier to the blue of the sky. 
There was the yellow road, fantastic in its 
frolic down to the valley. And at one of 
its wayward curves was the shop, the shop 
of Festus Clasby, a foreign growth upon the 




2 


WAYSIDERS 


landscape, its one long window crowded 
with sombre merchandise, its air that of 
established, cob- web respectability. 

Inside the shop was Festus Clasby 
himself, like some great masterpiece in its 
ancient frame. He was the product of the 
two civilisations, a charioteer who drove 
the two fiery steeds of Agricolo and Trade 
with a hand of authority. He was a man 
of lands and of shops. His dark face, 
framed in darker hair and beard, was 
massive and square. Behind the luxurious 
growth of hair the rich blood glowed on 
the clear skin. His chest had breadth, his 
limbs were great, showing girth at the hips 
and power at the calves. His eyes were 
large and dark, smouldering in soft velvety 
tones. The nose was long, the nostrils 
expressive of a certain animalism, the 
mouth looked eloquent. His voice was 
low, of an agreeable even quality, floating 
over the boxes and barrels of his shop like 
a chant. His words never jarred, his views 
were vaguely comforting, based on accepted 
conventions, expressed in round, soft, 
lulling platitudes. His manner was serious, 
his movements deliberate, the great bulk 
of the shoulders looming up in unconscious 


CAN WITH DIAMOND NOTCH 3 


but dramatic poses in the curiously uneven 
lighting of the shop. His hands gave the 
impression of slowness and a moderate 
skill; they could make up a parcel on the 
counter without leaving ugly laps ; they 
could perform a minor surgical operation on 
a beast in the fields without degenerating 
to butchery ; and they would always be 
doing something, even if it were only 
rolling up a ball of twine. His clothes 
exuded a faint suggestion of cinnamon, 
nutmeg and caraway seeds. 

Festus Clasby would have looked the part 
in any notorious position in life ; his 
shoulders would have carried with dignity 
the golden chain of office of the mayoralty 
of a considerable city ; he would have 
looked a perfect chairman of a jury at a 
Coroner’s inquest; as the Head of a pious 
Guild in a church he might almost be 
confused with the figures of the stained 
glass windows ; marching at the head 
of a brass band he would symbolise 
the conquering hero; as an undertaker he 
would have reconciled one to death. 
There was no technical trust which men 
would not have reposed in him, so perfectly 
was he wrought as a human casket, As 


4 


waYsiders 


it was, Festus Clasby filled the most fata! 
^ of all occupations to dignity without losing 
his tremendous illusion of respectability. 
The hands which cut the bacon and the 
tobacco, turned the taps over pint measures, 
scooped bran and flour into scales, took 
herrings out of their barrels, rolled up 
sugarsticks in shreds of paper for children, 
were hands whose movements the eyes of 
no saucy customer dared follow with a 
gleam of suspicion. Not once in a lifetime 
was that casket tarnished; the nearest he 
ever went to it was when he bought up — 
very cheaply, as was his custom — a broken 
man’s insurance policy a day after the law 
made such a practice illegal. There was 
no haggling at Festus Clasby’s counter. 
There was only conversation, agreeable 
conversation about things which Festus 
Clasby did not sell, such as the weather, 
the diseases of animals, the results of races, 
and the scandals of the Royal Families of 
Europe. These conversations were not 
hurried or yet protracted. They came to 
a happy ending at much the same moment 
as Festus Clasby made the knot on the 
twine of your parcel. But to stand in the 
devotional lights in front pf hi§ counter, 


CAN WITH DIAMOND NOTCH * 


wedged in between divisions and sub- 
divisions of his boxes and barrels, and to 
scent the good scents which exhaled from 
his shelves, and to get served by Festus 
Clasby in person, was to feel that you had 
been indeed served. 

The small farmers and herds and the 
hardy little dark mountainy men had this 
reverential feeling about the good man and 
his shop. They approached the establish- 
ment as holy pilgrims might approach a 
shrine. They stood at his counter with the 
air of devotees. Festus Clasby waited on 
them with patience and benignity. He 
might be some warm-blooded god handing 
gifts out over the counter. When he 
brought forth his great account book and 
entered up their purchases with a 
carpenter’s pencil — having first moistened 
the tip of it with his flexible lips — they had 
strongly, deep down in their souls, the 
conviction that they were then and for all 
time debtors to Festus Clasby. Which, 
indeed and in truth, they were. From 
year’s end to year’s end their accounts 
remained in that book; in the course of 
their lives various figures rose and faded 
after their names, recording the ups and 


6 


WAYSIDERS 


downs of their financial histories. It was 
only when Festus Clasby had supplied the 
materials for their wakes that the great 
pencil, with one mighty stroke of terrible 
finality, ran like a sword through their 
names, wiping their very memories from 
the hillsides. All purchases were entered 
up in Festus Clasby *s mighty record 
without vulgar discussions as to price. The 
business of the establishment was 
conducted on the basis of a belief in the 
man who sold and acquiescence in that 
belief on the part of the man who 
purchased. The customers of Festus 
Clasby would as soon have thought of 
questioning his prices as they would of 
questioning the right of the earth to revolve 
round the sun. Festus Clasby was the 
planet around which this constellation of 
small farmers, herds, and hardy little dark 
mountainy men revolved ; from his shop 
they drew the light and heat and food 
which kept them going. Their very 
emotions were registered at his counter. 
To the man with a religious turn he war 
able, at a price, to hand down from his 
shelves the Key of Heaven; the other side 
of the box he comforted the man who came 


CAN WITH DIAMOND NOTCH 7 


panting to his taps to drown the memory 
of some chronic impertinence. He gave a 
very long credit, and a very long credit, in 
his philosophy, justified a very, very long 
profit. As to security, if Festus Clasby’s 
customers had not a great deal of money 
they had grass which grew every year, and 
the beasts which Festus Clasby fattened 
and sold at the fairs had sometimes to eat 
his debtors out of his book. If his 
bullocks were not able to do even this, 
then Festus Clasby talked to the small 
farmer about a mortgage on the land, so 
that now and again small farmers became 
herds for Festus Clasby. In this way was 
he able to maintain his position with his 
back to the hills and his toes in the valley, 
striding his territory like a Colossus. When 
you saw his name on the signboard 
standing stark from the landscape, and 
when you saw Festus Clasby behind his 
counter, you knew instinctively that both 
had always stood for at least twenty 
shillings in the pound. 


8 


WAYS1DERS 


II 

Now, it came to pass that on a certain day 
Festus Clasby was passing through the 
outskirts of the nearest country town on 
his homeward journey, his cart laden with 
provisions. At the same moment the 
spare figure of a tinker whose name was 
Mac-an-Ward, the Son of the Bard, veered 
around the corner of a street with a new tin 
can under his arm. It was the Can with 
the Diamond Notch. 

Mac-an-Ward approached Festus 
Clasby, who pulled up his cart. 

“Well, my good man?” queried Festus 
Clasby, a phrase usually addressed across 
his counter, his hands outspread, to long- 
standing customers. 

“ The last of a rare lot,“ said Mac-an- 
Ward, deftly poising the tin can on the top 
of his fingers, so that it stood level with 
Festus Clasby’s great face. Festus Clasby 
took this as a business proposition, and 
the soul of the trader revolved within him. 
Why not buy the tin can from this tinker 
and sell it at a profit across his counter, 
even as he would sell the flitches of bacon 


CAN WITH DIAMOND NOTCH 9 


that were wrapped in sacking upon his 
cart? He was in mellow mood, and laid 
down the reins in the cart beside him. 

“And so she is the last?" he said, 
eyeing the tin can. 

“ She is the Can with the Diamond 
Notch.** 

“ Odds and ends go cheap,** said Festus 
Clasby. 

“ She is the last, but the flower of the 
flock.** 

“ Remnants must go as bargains or else 
remain as remnants.** 

“My wallet!*’ protested Mac-an-Ward, 
“ you wound me. Don’t speak as if 1 
picked it off a scrap heap.’* 

“ I will not, but I will say that, being a 
tail end and an odd one, it must go at a 
sacrifice.*’ 

The Son of the Bard tapped the side of 
the can gently with his knuckles. 

“ Listen to him, the hard man from the 
country ! He has no regard for my 
feelings. I had the soldering iron in my 
hand in face of it before the larks stirred 
this morning. I had my back to the East, 
but through the bottom of that can there I 


10 


WAYSIDERS 


saw the sun rise in its glory. The 
brightness of it is as the harvest moon.*’ 

44 1 don’t want it for its brightness.” 

44 Dear heart, listen to the man who 
would not have brightness. He would 
pluck the light from the moon, quench the 
heat in the heart of the sun. He would 
draw a screen across the aurora borealis 
and paint out the rainbow with lamp 
black. He might do such things, but he 
cannot deny the brightness of this can. 
Look upon it ! When the world is coming 
to an end it will shine up at the sky and it 
will say : 4 Ah, where are all the great 
stars now that made a boast of their 
brightness?’ And there will be no star 
left to answer. They will all be dead 
things in the heaven, buried in the 
forgotten graves of the skies.” 

Don’t mind the skies. Let me see if 
there may not be a leakage in it.” Festus 
Clasby held up the can between his 
handsome face and the bright sky. 

“Leakages!” exclaimed Mac-an-Ward. 
“ A leakage in a can that I soldered as if 
with my own heart’s blood. Holy 
Kilcock, what a mind has this man from 
the country ! He sees no value in its 


CAN WITH DIAMOND NOTCH 1 1 

brightness; now he will tell me that there 
is no virtue in its music.** 

“ I like music,’* said Festus Clasby. 
“ No fiddler has ever stood at my door 
but had the good word to say of me. Not 
one of them could ever say that he went 
thirsty from my counter.” 

Said the Son of the Bard : ‘‘ Fiddlers, 
what are fiddlers? What sound have they 
like the music of the sweet milk going into 
that can from the yellow teats of the red 
cow? Morning and evening there will be 
a hymn played upon it in the haggard. 
Was not the finest song ever made called 
Cailin deas cruidhte na mbo ? Music ! 
Do you think that the water in the holy 
well will not improve in its sparkle to have 
such a can as this dipped into it? It will 
be welcome everywhere for its clearness 
and its cleanness. Heavenly Father, look 
at the manner in which I rounded the edge 
of that can with the clippers ! Cut clean 
and clever, soldered at the dawn of day, 
the dew falling upon the hands that 
moulded it, the parings scattered about my 
feet like jewels. And now you would 
bargain over it. I will not sell it to you 
at all. 1 will put it in a holy shrine.” 


12 


WAYSIDERS 


Festus Clasby turned the can over in his 
hands, a little bewildered. “It looks an 
ordinary can enough,” he said. 

“It is the Can with the Diamond 
Notch,” declared Mac-an-Ward. 

“ Would it be worth a shilling now?” 

“ He puts a price upon it ! It is 
blasphemy. The man has no religion ; he 
will lose his soul. The devils will have 
him by the heels. They will tear his red 
soul through the roof. Give me the can; 
don’t hold it in those hands any longer. 
They are coarse; the hair is standing about 
the purple knuckles like stubbles in an 
ill-cut meadow. That can was made for 
the hands of a delicate woman or for the 
angels that carry w T ater to the Court of 
Heaven. I saw it in a vision the night 
before 1 made it; it was on the head of a 
maiden with golden hair. Her feet were 
bare and like shells. She walked across 
a field where daisies rose out of young 
grass; she had the can resting on her head 
like one coming from the milking. So I 
rose up then and said, ‘ Now, I will make 
a can fit for this maiden’s head.’ And I 
made it out of the rising sun and the falling 


CAN WITH DIAMOND NOTCH 13 


dew. And now you ask me if it is worth 
a shilling.’* 

“For all your talk, it is only made of 
tin, and not such good tin.” 

“Not good tin ! I held it in my hand 
in the piece before ever the clippers was 
laid upon it. I bent it and it curved, 
supple as a young snake. I shook it, and 
the ripples ran down the length of it like 
silver waves in a little lake. The strength 
of the ages was in its voice. It has 
gathered its power in the womb of the 
earth. It was smelted from the precious 
metal taken from the mines of the 
Peninsula of Malacca, and it will have its 
gleam when the sparkle of the diamond is 
spent.” 

“ I’ll give you a shilling for it, and hold 
your tongue.” 

“ No ! I will not have it on my 
conscience. God is my judge, I will break 
it up first. I will cut it into pieces. From 
one of them will yet be made a breastplate, 
and in time to come it will be nailed to 
your own coffin, with your name and your 
age and the date of your death painted 
upon it. And when the paint is faded 
upon it it \ v ill shine over the dust of the 


14 


WAYS1DERS 


bone of your breast. It will be dag up and 
preserved when all graveyards are 
abolished. They will say, * We will Keep 
this breastplate, for who knows but that 
it bore the name of the man who refused 
to buy the Can with the Diamond 
Notch.' ’* 

“ How much will you take for it?” 

44 Now you are respectful. Let me put 
a price upon it, for it was I who fashioned 
it into this shape. It will hold three 
gallons and a half from now until the time 
that swallows wear shoes. But for all that 
I will part with it, because I am poor and 
hungry and have a delicate wife. It 
breaks my heart to say it, but pay into my 
hands two shillings and it is yours. Pay 
quickly or I may repent. It galls me to 
part with it; in your charity pay quickly 
and begone.” 

” I will not. I will give you one-and- 
six.” 

44 Assassin ! You stab me. What a 
mind you have ! Look at the greed of 
your eyes; they would devour the grass of 
the fields from this place up to the Devil’s 
Bit. You would lock up the air and sell 
it in gasping breaths, You are disgusting. 


CAN WITH DIAMOND NOTCH 15 


But give me the one-and-six and to 
Connacht with you ! I am damning my 
soul standing beside you and your cart, 
smelling its contents. How can a man 
talk with the smell of fat bacon going 
between him and the wind? One-and-six 
and the dew that fell at the making hardly 
dry upon my hands yet. Farewell, a long 
farewell, my Shining One; we may never 
meet again.” 

The shawl of Mac-an-Ward*s wife had 
been blowing around the near-by corner 
while this discussion had been in progress. 
It flapped against the wall in the wind like 
a loose sail in the rigging. The head of 
the woman herself came gradually into 
view, one eye spying around the masonry, 
half-closing as it measured the comfortable 
proportions of Festus Clasby seated upon 
his cart. As the one-and-six was counted 
out penny by penny into the palm of the 
brown hand of the Son of the Bard, the 
figure of his wife floated out on the open 
road, tossing and tacking and undecided 
in its direction to the eye of those who 
understood not the language of gestures 
and motions, By a series of giddy 


16 


WAYSIDERS 


evolutions she arrived at the cart as the 
last of the coppers was counted out. 

" I have parted with my inheritance,” 
said Mac-an-Ward. ‘‘ I have sold my soul 
and the angels have folded their wings, 
weeping.” 

“In other words, I have bought a tin 
can,” said Festus Clasby, and his frame 
and the entire cart shook with his 
chuckling. 

The tinker’s wife chuckled with him in 
harmony. Then she reached out her hand 
with a gesture that claimed a sympathetic 
examination of the purchase. Festus 
Clasby hesitated, looking into the eyes of 
the woman. Was she to be trusted? Her 
eyes were clear, grey, and open, almost 
babyish in their rounded innocence. 
Festus Clasby handed her the tin can, and 
she examined it slowly. 

“ Who sold you the Can with the 
Diamond Notch?” she asked. 

“The man standing by your side.” 

“ He has wronged you. The can is not 
his.” 

“ He says he made it.” 

“Liar! He never curved it in the 
piece.” 


CAN WITH DIAMOND NOTCH 17 

“ I don’t much care whether he did or 
not. It is mine now, anyhow.” 

“It is my brother’s can. No other hand 
made it. Look ! Do you see this notch 
on the piece of sheet iron where the handle 
is fastened to the sides?” 

“ I do.” 

“Is it not shaped like a diamond?” 

“ It is.” 

“ By that mark I identify it. My brother 
cuts that diamond-shaped notch in all the 
work he puts out from his hands. It is 
his private mark. The shopkeepers have 
knowledge of it. There is a value on the 
cans with that notch shaped like a 
diamond. This man here makes cans 
when he is not drunk, but the notch to 
them is square. The shopkeepers have 
knowledge of them, too, for they do not 
last. The handles fall out of them. He 
has never given his time to the art, and so 
does not know how to rivet them.” 

“ She vilifies me,” said Mac-an-Ward, 
sotto voce. 

“ Then I am glad he has not sold me 
one of his own,” said Festus Clasby. “ I 
have a fancy for the lasting article.” 

“You may be able to buy it yet,” said 


18 


WAYSIDERS 


the woman. “ My brother is lying sick of 
the fever, and I have his right to sell the 
Cans with the Diamond Notch on the 
handles where they are riveted.” 

14 But I have bought it already.” 

44 This man,” said the damsel, in a tone 
which discounted the husband, 44 had no 
right to sell it. If it is not his property, 
but the property of my brother, won’t you 
say that he nor no other man has a right 
to sell it?” 

Festus Clasby felt puzzled. He was 
unaccustomed to dealing with people who 
raised questions of title. His black brows 
knit. 

44 How can a man who doesn’t own a 
thing sell a thing?” she persisted. 44 Is it 
a habit of yours to sell that which you do 
not own?” 

44 It is not,” Festus Clasby said, feeling 
that an assault had been wantonly made 
on his integrity as a trader. 44 No one 
could ever say that of me. Honest value 
was ever my motto.” 

44 And the motto of my brother who is 
sick with the fever. I will go to him and 
say, 4 I met the most respectable-looking 
man in all Europe, who put a value on 


CAN WITH DIAMOND NOTCH 19 


your can because of the diamond notch.’ 
I will pay into his hands the one-and-six 
which is its price.” 

Festus Clasby had, when taken out of 
his own peculiar province, a heavy mind, 
and the type of mind that will range along 
side-issues and get lost in them if they are 
raised often enough and long enough. The 
diamond notch on the handle, the brother 
who was sick of the fever, the alleged 
non-title of Mac-an-Ward, the interposition 
of the woman, the cans with the handles 
which fall out, and the cans with the 
handles which do not fall out, the equity 
of selling that which does not belong to 
you — all these things chased each other 
across Festus Clasby ’s mind. The Son of 
the Bard stood silent by the cart, looking 
away down the road wdth a pensive look 
on his long, narrow face. 

” Pay me the one-and-six to put into the 
hands of my brother,” the woman said. 

Festus Clasby ’s mind was brought back 
at once to his pocket. ” No,” he said, 
*' but this man can give you my money to 
pay into the hand of your brother.” 

“ This man,” she said airily, ” has no 
interes^ for me. Whatever took place 


20 


WAYSIDERS 


between the two of you in regard to my 
brother’s can I will have nothing to say 
to.” 

“ Then if you won’t,” said Festus 
Clasby, ” I will have nothing to do with 
you. If he had no right to the can you can 
put the police on to him ; that’s what police 
are for.” 

“ And upon you,” the woman added. 
“The police are also for that.” 

“Upon me?” Festus Clasby exclaimed, 
his chest swelling. “ My name has never 
crossed the mind of a policeman, except, 
maybe, for what he might owe me at the 
end of the month for pigs’ heads. I never 
stood in the shadow of the law. And to 
this man standing by your side I have 
nothing to say.” 

“ You have. You bought from him that 
which did not belong to him. You 
received, and the receiver is as bad as the 
rogue. So the law has it. The shadow 
of the law is great.” 

Festus Clasby came down from his cart, 
his face troubled. “ I am not used to 
this,” he said. 

“You are a handsome man, a man 
thought well of. You have great 


CAN WITH DIAMOND NOTCH 21 


provisions upon your cart. This man has 
nothing but the unwashed shirt which 
hangs on his slack back. It will not 
become you to march handcuffed with his 
like, going between two policemen to the 
bridewell.” 

” What are you saying of me, woman?” 

44 It will be no token of business to see 
your cart and the provisions it contains 
driven into the yard of the barracks. All 
the people of this town will see it, for they 
have many eyes. The people of trade will 
be coming to their doors, speaking of it. 
4 A man’s property was molested,* they 
will say. * What property?* will be asked. 
4 The Can with the Diamond Notch,* they 
will answer ; * the man of substance 

conspired with the thief to make away 
with it.’ These are the words that will be 
spoken in the streets.” 

Festus Clasby set great store on his 
name, the name he had got painted for 
the eye of the country over his door. 

” I will be known to the police as one 
extensive in my dealings,” he said. 
‘‘They will not couple me with this man 
who is known as one living outside of the 
law.” 


22 WAYSIDERS 

“It is not for the Peelers to put tne 
honest man on one side and the thief on 
the other. That will be for the court. You 
will stand with him upon my charge. The 
Peelers will say to you, ‘ We know you to 
be a man of great worth, and the law will 
uphold you.* But the law is slow, and a 
man’s good name goes fast. 

Festus Clasby fingered his money in his 
pocket, and the touch of it made him 
struggle. “ The can may be this man’s 
for all I know. You have no brother, and 
I believe you to be a fraud.’’ 

“ That, too, will be for the law to 
decide. If I have a brother, the law will 
produce him when his fever is ended. If 
I have no brother the law will so declare 
it. If my brother makes a Can with the 
Diamond Notch, the law will hear of ibs 
value. If my brother does not make a Can 
with the Diamond Notch you will know 
me as one deficient in truth. There is no 
point under the stars that the law cannot 
be got to declare upon. But as is right, 
the law is slow, and will wait for a man to 
come out of his fever. Before it can 
decide, another man’s good name, like a 
little cloud riding across the sky, is gone 


CAN WITH DIAMOND NOTCH 23 


from the memory of the people and will 
not come riding back upon the crest of any 
wind.** 

“It will be a great price to be paying 
for a tin can,’’ said Festus Clasby. He 
was turning around with his fingers the 
coins in his pocket. 

The woman put the can on her arm, then 
covered it up with her shawl, like a hen 
taking a chick under the protection of her 
wing. 

“ I have given you many words,** she 
said, “ because you are a man sizeable and 
good to the eye of a foolish woman. If I 
had not a sick brother I might be induced 
to let slip his right in the Can with the 
Diamond Notch for the pleasure I have 
found in the look of your face. When 1 
saw you on the cart I said, * There is the 
build of a man which is to my fancy.’ 
When I heard your voice I said, * That is 
good music to the ear of a woman.’ When 
I saw your eye I said, * There is danger to 
the heart of a woman.* When I saw your 
beard I said, * There is a great growth from 
the strength of a man.* When you spoke 
to me and gave me your laugh I said, * Ah, 
what a place that would be for a woman 


24 WAYSIDERS 

to be seated, driving the roads of the 
country on a cart laden with provisions 
beside one so much to the female liking. 
But my sick brother waits, and now I go 
to do that which may make away with the 
goodness of your name. I must seek those 
who will throw the shadow of the law over 
many.** 

She moved away, sighing a quick sigh, 
as one might who was setting out on a 
disagreeable mission. Festus Clasby 
called to her and she came back, her eyes 
pained as they sought his face. Festus 
Clasby paid the money, a bright shilling 
and two threepenny bits, into her hand, 
wondering vaguely, but virtuously, as he 
did so, what hardy little dark mountainy 
man he would later charge up the can to 
at the double price. 

“ Now,** said the wife of Mac-an-Ward, 
putting the money away, “ you have paid 
me for my brother’s can and you would be 
within your right in getting back your one- 
and-six from this bad man.” She hitched 
her shawl contemptuously in the direction 
of Mac-an-Ward. 

Festus Clasby looked at the Son of the 
Elard with his velvety soft eyes. ” Come, 


CAN WITH DIAMOND NOTCH 25 


sir,” said he, his tone a little nervous. 

My money ! * * 

Mac-an-Ward hitched his trousers at the 
hips like a sailor, spat through his teeth, 
and eyed Festus Clasby through a slit in 
his half-closed eyes. There was a little 
patter of the feet on the road on the part 
of Mac-an-Ward, and Festus Clasby knew 
enough of the world and its ways to gather 
that these were scientific movements 
invented to throw a man in a struggle. 
He did not like the look of the Son of the 
Bard. 

” I will go home and leave him to God,” 
he said. ” Hand me the can and I will be 
shortening my road.” 

At this moment three small boys, 
ragged, eager, their faces hard and 
weather-beaten, bounded up to the cart. 
They were breathless as they stood about 
the woman. 

” Mother !” they cried in chorus. 44 The 
man in the big shop ! He is looking for 
a can. 4 * 

44 What can?” cried the woman. 

The three young voices rose like a great 
cry : 44 The Can with the Diamond Notch.” 

The woman caught her face in her hands 


26 


WAYSIDERS 


as if some terrible thing had been said. 
She stared at the youngsters intently. 

“ He wants one more to make up an 
order,** they chanted. ‘^He says he will 

pay ” 

The woman shrank from them with a 
cry. “How much?’* she asked. 

“ Half-a-crown !’* 

The wife of Mac-an-Ward threw out her 
arms in a wild gesture of despair. “ My 
God!’’ she cried. “I sold it. I wronged 
my sick brother.’’ 

“Where did you sell it, mother?** 

“ Here, to this handsome dark man.** 

“ How much did he pay?’’ 

“ Eighteen-pence.’* 

The three youngsters raised their hard 
faces to the sky and raised a long howl, 
like beagles who had lost their quarry. 

Suddenly the woman’s face brightened. 
She looked eagerly at Festus Clasby, then 
laid the hand of friendship, of appeal, on 
his arm. 

“I have it!** she cried, joyfully. 
“Have what?’’ asked Festus Clasby. 

“ A way out of the trouble,*’ she said. 
“ A means of saving my brother from 


CAN WITH DIAMOND NOTCH 27 


wrong. A way of bringing him his own 
for the Can with the Diamond Notch.’ * 

“What way might that be?” asked 
Festus Clasby, his manner growing 
sceptical. 

“ I will go to the shopman with it and 
get the half-crown. Having got the half- 
crown I will hurry back here— or you can 
come with me — and I will pay you back 
your one-and-six. In that way I will make 
another shilling and do you no wrong. Is 
that agreed?” 

“ It is not agreed,” said Festus Clasby. 
“ Give me out the tin can. I am done 
with you now.” 

“It’s robbery!” cried the woman, her 
eyes full of a blazing sudden anger. 

“What is robbery?” asked Festus 
Clasby. 

“ Doing me out of a shilling. Wronging 
my sick brother out of his earnings. A 
man worth hundreds, maybe thousands, 
to stand between a poor woman and a 
shilling. I am deceived in you.” 

“ Out with the can,” said Festus Clasby. 

“ Let the woman earn her shilling,” said 
Mac-an-Ward. His voice came from 
behind Festus Clasby. 


28 


WAYSIDERS 


“ Our mother must get her shilling,’* 
cried the three youngsters. 

Festus Clasby turned about to Mac-an- 
Ward, and as he did so he noticed that 
two men had come and set their backs 
against a wall hard by; they leaned limply, 
casually, against it, but they were, he 
noticed, of the same tribe as the Mac-an- 
Wards. 

“It was always lucky, the Can with the 
Diamond Notch,” said the woman. 
“ This offer of the man in the big shop is 
a sign of it. I will not allow you to break 
my brother’s luck and he lying in his 
fever.” 

“ By heaven !” cried Festus Clasby. “ I 
will have you all arrested. 1 will have the 
law of you now.” 

He wheeled about the horse and cart, 
setting his face for the police barrack, 
which could be seen shining in the distance 
in the plumage of a magpie. The two 
men who stood by came over, and from 
the other side another man and three old 
women. With Mac-an-Ward, Mrs. Mac- 
an-Ward, and the three young Mac-an- 
Wards, they grouped themselves around 
Festus Clasby, and he was vaguely 


CAN WITH DIAMOND NOTCH 29 


conscious that they were grouped with 
some military art. A low murmur of a 
dispute arose among them, rising steadily. 
He could only hear snatches of their 
words : * Give it back to him,* * He won’t 
get it,’ ‘ How can he be travelling without 
the Can with the Diamond Notch?* ‘Is it 
the Can with the Diamond Notch?’ 'No,* 
‘ Maybe it is, maybe it is not,* ‘ Who 
knows that?’ ‘I say yes,’ ‘Hold your 
tongue,* ‘Be off, you slut,* ‘ Rattle away.’ 

People from the town were attracted to 
the place. Festus Clasby, the dispute 
stirring something in his own blood, shook 
his fist in the long narrow face of Mac-an- 
Ward. As he did so he got a tip on the 
heels and a pressure upon the chest sent 
him staggering a few steps back. One 
of the old women held him up in her arms 
and another old woman stood before him, 
striking her breast. Festus Clasby saw the 
wisps of hair hanging about the bony face 
and froth at the corners of her mouth. 
Vaguely he saw the working of the bones 
cf her wasted neck, and below it a long 
V-shaped gleam of the yellow tanned 
breast, which she thumped with her 
fist. Afterwards the memory of this ugly 


30 


WAYS1DERS 


old trollop remained with him. The 
youngsters were shooting in and out 
through the group, sending up unearthly 
shrieks. Two of the men peeled off their 
coats and were sparring at each other 
wickedly, shouting all the time, while 
Mac-an-Ward was making a tumultuous 
peace. The commotion and the strife, or 
the illusion of strife, increased. “ Oh,” 
an onlooker cried, “ the tinkers are 
murdering each other!” 

The patient horse at last raised its head 
with a toss and a snort over the rabble, and 
then wheeled about to break away. With 
the instinct of his kind, Festus Clasby 
rushed to the animal’s head and held him. 
As he did so the striped petticoats and 
the tossing shawls of the women flashed 
about the shafts and the body of the cart. 
The men raised a hoarse roar. 

A neighbour of Festus Clasby, driving 
up the street at this moment, was amazed 
to see the great man of lands and shops in 
the midst of the wrangling tinkers. He 
pulled up, marvelling, then went to him. 

“What is this, Festus?” he asked. 

“They have robbed me,” cried Festus 
Clasby. 


CAN WITH DIAMOND NOTCH 31 


“Robbed you?" 

“ Ay, of money and of property/’ 

“Good God! How much money?” 

“ I don’t rightly know — I forget — some 
shillings, maybe.” 

“Oh! And of property?” 

“ No matter. It is only one article, but 
property.” 

“Come home, Festus; in the name of 
God get out of this,” advised the good 
neighbour. 

But Festus Clasby was strangely moved. 
He was behaving like a man who had 
drink taken. Something had happened 
wounding to his soul. “ I will not go,” he 
cried. “ I must have back my money.” 

The tinkers had now ceased disputing 
among themselves. They were grouped 
about the two men as if they were only 
spectators of an interesting dispute. 

Back I must have my money ! ’ * cried 
Festus Clasby, his great hand going up in 
a mighty threat. The tinkers clicked their 
tongues on the roofs of their mouths in a 
sound of amazement, as much as to say, 
“ What a terrible thing ! What a 
wonderful and a mighty man!” 


32 WAYSIDERS 

** I advise you to come/ persuaded his 
neighbour. 

“Never! God is my judge, never!” 
cried Festus Clasby. 

Again the tinkers clicked their tongues, 
looked at each other in wonder. 

“You will be thankful you brought your 
life out of this,” said the neighbour. 
“ Let it not be said of you on the country- 
side that you were seen wrangling with the 
tinkers in this town.” 

“Shame! Shame! Shame !” broke out 
like a shocked murmur among the 
attentive tinkers. 

Festus Clasby faced his audience in all 
his splendid proportions. Never was he 
seen so moved. Never had such a great 
passion seized him. The soft tones of his 
eyes were no longer soft. They shone in 
fiery wroth. “ I will at least have that 
which I bought twice over !” he cried. “ I 
will have my tin can!” 

Immediately the group of tinkers broke 
up in the greatest disorder. Hoarse cries 
broke out among them. They behaved 
like people upon whom some fearful doom 
had been suddenly pronounced. The old 
women threw themselves about, racked 


CAN WITH DIAMOND NOTCH 33 

with pain and terror. They beat their 
hands together, threw wild arms in 
despairing gestures to the sky, raising a 
harrowing lamentation. The men 
growled in sullen gutturals. The 
youngsters knelt on the road, giving out the 
wild beagle-like howl. Voices cried above 
the uproar: “Where is it? Where is the 
Can with the Diamond Notch? Get him 
the Can with the Diamond Notch ! He 
must have the can with the Diamond 
Notch ! How can he travel without the 
Can with the Diamond Notch? He’ll die 
without the Can with the Diamond 
Notch ! * * 

Festus Clasby was endeavouring to 
deliver his soul of impassioned protests 
when his neighbour, assisted by a 
bystander or two, forcibly hoisted him up 
on his cart and he was driven away amid 
a great howling from the tinkers. 

It was twilight when he reached his 
place among the hills, and the 
good white letters under the thatch 




34 


WAY31DERS 


showed clear to his eyes. Pulling himself 
together he drove with an air about the 
gable and into the wide open yard at the 
back, fowls clearing out of his way, a 
sheep-dog coming to welcome him, a calf 
mewing mournfully over the half-door of 
a stable. Festus Clasby was soothed by 
this homely, this worshipful, environment, 
and got off the cart with a sigh. Inside 
the kitchen he could hear the faithful 
women trotting about preparing the great 
master’s meal. He made ready to carry 
the provisions into the shop. When he 
unwrapped the sacking from the bacon, 
something like a sudden stab went through 
his breast. Perspiration came out on his 
forehead. Several large long slices had 
been cut off in jagged slashes from the 
flitches. They lay like wounded things on 
the body of the cart. He pulled down the 
other purchases feverishly, horror in his 
face. How many loaves had been torn off 
his batch of bread? Where were all the 
packets of tea and sugar, the currants and 
raisins, the flour, the tobacco, the cream- 
of-tartar, the caraway seeds, the nutmeg, 

the lemon peel, the hair oil, the 

Festus Clasby wiped the perspiration 


CAN WITH DIAMOND NOTCH. 35 


from his forehead. He stumbled out of 
the yard, sat up on a ditch, and looked 
across the silent, peaceful, innocent 
country. How good it was ! How lovely 
were the beasts grazing, fattening, in the 
fields ! His soft velvety eyes were 
suddenly flooded with a bitter emotion and 
he wept. 

The loaves of bread were under the 
shawl of the woman who had supported 
Festus Clasby when he stumbled; the 
bacon was under another bright shawl ; 
the tobacco and flour fell to the lot of her 
whose yellow breast showed the play of 
much sun and many winds; the tea and 
sugar and the nutmeg and caraway seeds 
were under the wing of the wife of the Son 
of the Bard in the Can with the Diamond 
Notch. 


BOTH SIDES OF THE POND 
I 

RS. DONOHOE marked the 
clearness of the sky, the 
number and brightness of the 
stars. 

“ There will be a share of 
frost to-night, Denis,* * she said. 

Denis Donohoe, her son, adjusted a 
primitive bolt on the stable door, then 
sniffed at the air, his broad nostrils 
quivering sensitively as he raised his head. 

“There is ice in the wind,’* he said. 

“ Make a start with the turf to the 
market to-morrow, ** his mother advised. 
“ People in town will be wanting fires 
now.” 

Denis Donohoe walked over to the dim 
stack of brown turf piled at the back of 
the stable. It was there since the early 
fall, the dry earth cut from the bog, the 
turf that would make bright and pleasant 
fires in the open grates of Connacht for 
the winter months. Away from it spread 



BOTH SIDES OF THE POND 3l 

the level bogland, a sweep of country that 
had, they said, in the infancy of the earth 
been a great oak forest, across which in 
later times had roved packs of hungry 
wolves, and which could at this day claim 
the most primitive form of industry in 
Western Europe. Out into this bogland 
in the summer had come from their cabins 
the peasantry, men and women, Denis 
Donohoe among them; they had dug up 
slices of the spongy, wet sod, cut it into 
pieces rather larger than bricks, licked it 
into shape by stamping upon it with their 
bare feet, stacked it about in little rows to 
dry in the sun, one sod leaning against the 
other, looking in the moonlight like a great 
host of wee brown fairies grouped in 
couples for a midnight dance on the carpet 
of purple heather. Now the time had 
come to convert it into such money as it 
would fetch. 

Denis Donohoe whistled merrily that 
night as he piled the donkey cart, or 
“ creel,** with the sods of turf. Long 
before daybreak next morning he was 
about, his movements quick like one who 
had great business on hands. The 
kitchen of the cabin was illuminated by 


38 WAYS1DERS 

a rushlight, the rays of which did not go 
much beyond a small deal table, scrubbed 
white, where he sat at his breakfast, an 
unusually good repast, for he had tea, 
home-made bread and a boiled egg. His 
mother moved about the dim kitchen, 
waiting on him, her bare feet almost 
noiseless on the black earthen floor. He 
ate heartily and silently, making the Sign 
of the Cross when he had finished. His 
mother followed him out on the dark road 
to bid him good luck, standing beside the 
creel of turf. 

“ There should be a brisk demand now 
that the winter is upon us,” she said 
hopefully. “God be with you.” 

“ God and Mary be with you, mother,” 
Denis Donohoe made answer as he took 
the donkey by the head and led him along 
the dark road. The little animal drew his 
burden very slowly, the cart creaking and 
rocking noisily over the uneven road. 
Now and then Denis Donohoe spoke to 
him encouragingly, softly, his gaze at the 
same time going to the east, searching the 
blank sky for a hint of the dawn to come. 

But they had gone rocking and swaying 
along the winding read for a long time 


BOTH SIDES OE THE POND 39 


before the day dawned. Denis Donohoe 
marked the spread of the light, the slow 
looming up of a range of hills, the sweep 
of brown patches of bog, then grey and 
green fields, broken by the glimmer of blue 
lakes, slopes of brown furze making for 
them a dull frame. 

“ Now that we have the blessed light 
we won’t feel the journey at all,” Denis 
Donohoe said to the donkey. 

The ass drew the creel of turf more 
briskly, shook his winkers and swished 
his tail. When they struck very sharp 
hills Denis Donohoe got to the back of the 
cart, put his hands to the shafts, and, 
lowering his head, helped to push up the 
load, the muscles springing taut at the 
back of his thick limbs as he pressed hard 
against the bright frosty ground. 

As they came down from the hills he 
already felt very hungry, his fingers ten- 
derly fondling the slices of oaten bread he 
had put away in the pocket of his grey 
homespun coat. But he checked the im- 
pulse to eat, the long jaw of his swarthy 
face set, his strong teeth tight together 
awaiting the right hour to play their eager 
part. If he ate all the oaten bread now — 


40 


WAYSIDERS 


splendid, dry, hard stuff, made of oat meal 
and water, baked on a gridiron — it would 
leave too long a fast afterwards. Denis 
Donohoe had been brought up to practise 
caution in these matters, to subject his 
stomach to a rigorous discipline, for life 
on the verge of a bog is an exacting busi- 
ness. Instead of obeying the impulse to 
eat Denis Donohoe blew warm breaths 
into his purple hands, beat his arms about 
his body to deaden the bitter cold, 
whistled, took some steps of an odd dance 
along the road, and went on talking to the 
donkey as if he were making pleasant con- 
versation to a companion. The only sign 
of life to be seen on earth or air was a thin 
line of wild duck high up in the sky, one 
group making wide circles over a vivid 
mountain lake. 

Half way on his journey to the country 
town Denis Donohoe pulled up his little 
establishment. It was outside a lonely 
cottage exactly like his own home. There 
was^the same brown thatch on the roof, 
a garland -of verdant wild creepers droop- 
ing from a spot at the gable, the same two 
small windows without any sashes in the 
front wall, the same narrow rutty pathway 


BOTH SIDES OF THE POND 41 


from the road, the same sort of yellow hen 
cackling heatedly, her legs quivering as 
she clutched the drab half door, the same 
scent of decayed cabbage leaves in the air. 
Denis Donohoe took a sack of hay from 
the top of the creel of turf, and spread 
some of it on the side of the road for the 
donkey. While he did so a woman who 
wore a white cap, a grey bodice, a thick 
woollen red petticoat, under which her 
bare lean legs showed, came to the door, 
waving the yellow hen off her perch. 

“ Good day to you, Mrs. Deely,” Denis 
Donohoe said, showing his strong teeth. 

“ Welcome, Denis. Won’t you step in 
and warm yourself at the fire, for the daj r 
is sharp, and you are early on the road?” 

Denis Donohoe sat with the woman by 
the fire for some time, their exchange of 
family gossip quiet and agreeable. The 
young man was, however, uneasy, glanc- 
ing about the house now and then like 
one who missed something. The woman, 
dropping her calm eyes on him, divined 
his thoughts. 

“Agnes is not about,” she said. “She 
started off for the Cappa Post Office an 
hour gone, for we had tidings that a letter 
is there for us from Sydney.” 


42 


WAYSIDERS 


“A letter from her sister?** 

“Yes, Mary is married there and doing 
well.** 

Denis Donohoe resumed his journey. 

At the appointed spot he ravenously 
devoured the oaten bread, then stretched 
himself on his stomach on the ground and 
took some draughts of water from a roadside 
stream, drawing it up with a slow sucking 
noise, his teeth chattering, his eyes on the 
bright pebbles that glittered between some 
green cress at the bottom. When he had 
finished the donkey also laved his thirst 
at the spot. 

He reached the market town while it 
was yet morning. He led the creel of 
turf through the straggling streets, where 
some people with the sleep in their eyes 
were moving about. The only sound he 
made was a low word of encouragement 
to the donkey. 

“How much for the creel?’’ a mem 
asked, standing at his shop door. 

“Six shilling,” Denis Donohoe replied, 
and waited, for it was above the business 
of a decent turf-seller to praise his wares 
or press for a sale. 

“ Good luck to you, son,” said the mer- 


BOTH SIDES OF THE POND 43 

chant, “ I hope you’ll get it.” He smiled, 
folded his hands one over the other, and 
retired to his shop/ 

Denis Donohoe moved on, saying in an 
undertone to the donkey, “ Gee-up, 
Patsy. That old fellow is no good.” 

There were other inquiries, but nobody 
purchased. They said that money was 
very scarce. Denis Donohoe said nothing; 
money was too remote a thing for him to 
imagine how it could be ever anything 
else except scarce. He grew tired of going 
up and down past shops where there was 
no sign of business, so he drew the side 
streets and laneways, places where chil- 
dren screamed about the road, where there 
was a scent of soapy water, where women 
came to their doors and looked at him 
with eyes that expressed a slow resent- 
ment, their arms bare above the elbows, 
their hair hanging dankly about their 
ears, their voices, when they spoke, mono- 
tonous, and always sounding a note of 
tired complaint. 

On the rise of a little bridge Denis 
Donohoe met a red-haired woman, a family 
of children skirmishing about her; there 


44 


WAYS1DERS 


was a battle light in her wolfish eyes, her 
idle hands were folded over her stomach. 

“ How much, gossobn? 4 * she asked. 

44 Six shilling.” 

44 Six devils! 44 She walked over to the 
creel, handling some of the sods of turf. 
Denis Donohoe knew she was searching a 
constitutionally abusive mind for some 
word contemptuous of his wares. She 
found it at last, for she smacked her lips. 
It was in the Gaelic. 44 Spairteach\" she 
cried — a word that was eloquent of bad 
turf, stuff dug from the first layer of the 
bog, a mere covering for the correct vein 
beneath it. 

44 It’s good stone turf, 44 Denis Donohoe 
protested, a little nettled. 

The woman was joined by some people 
who were hanging about, anxious to take 
part in bargaining which involved no per- 
sonal liability. They argued, made jokes, 
shouted, and finally began to bully Denis 
Donohoe, the woman leading, her voice 
half a scream, her stomach heaving, her 
eyes dancing with excitement, a yellow 
froth gathering at the corners of her angry 
mouth, her hand gripping a sod of the 
turf, for the only dissipation life now 


BOTH SIDES OF THE POND 45 


offered her was this haggling with and 
shouting down of turf sellers. Denis 
Donohoe stood immovable beside his cart, 
patient as his donkey, his swarthy face 
stolid under the shadow of his broad- 
brimmed black hat, his intelligent eyes 
quietly measuring his noisy antagonists. 
When the woman’s anger had quite spent 
itself the turf was purchased for five 
shillings. 

Denis Donohoe carried the sods in his 
arms to the kitchen of the purchaser’s 
house. It entailed a great many journeys 
in and out, the sods being piled up on his 
hooked left arm with a certain skill. His 
route lay through a small shop, down a 
semi-dark hallway, across a kitchen, the 
sods being stowed under a stairway where 
cockroaches scampered from the thudding 
of the falling sods. 

Women were moving about the kitchen, 
talking incessantly, fumbling about tables, 
always appearing to search for something 
that had been lost, one crooning over a 
cradle that she rocked before the fire. The 
smell of cooking, the sound of something 
fatty hissing on a pan, brought a sense of 


46 


WAYSIDERS 


faintness to Denis Donohoe, for he was 
ravenously hungry again. 

He stumbled awkwardly in and out of 
the place with his armfuls of brown sods. 
The women moved with reluctance out of 
his way. Once a servant girl raised the 
most melancholy pair of wide brown eyes 
he had ever seen, saying to him, “It 
always goes through me to hear the turf 
falling in the stair-hole. It reminds me of 
the day I heard the clay falling on me 
father’s coffin, God be with him and for- 
give him, for he died in the horrors.” 

By the time Denis Donohoe had 
delivered the cartload of turf the little 
donkey had eaten all the hay in the sack. 
In the small shop Denis purchased some 
bacon, flour and tea, so that he had only 
some coppers to bring home with him. 
After some hesitation he handed back one 
penny for some biscuits, and these he ate 
as soon as he set out on the return journey. 

The little donkey went over the road 
through the hills on the way back with 
spirit, for donkeys are good homers. Denis 
Donohoe sat up on the front of the cart, 
his legs dangling down beside the shaft. 
The donkey trotted down the slopes gayly, 


BOTH SIDES OF THE POND 47 


the harness rattling, the cart swaying, jolt- 
ing, making an amazing noise. 

The donkey cocked his ears, flecked his 
tail, even indulged in one or two buck- 
jumps, as he rattled down the hilly roads. 
Denis Donohoe once or twice leaned out 
over the shaft, and brought his open hand 
down on the haunch of the donkey, but it 
was more a caress than a whack. 

The light began to fade, the landscape 
to grow more obscure. Suddenly Denis 
Donohoe broke into song. They were 
going over a level stretch of ground. The 
donkey walked quietly. The quivering 
voice rang out over the darkening land- 
scape, gaining in quality and in steadi- 
ness, a clear light voice, the notes coming 
with the instinctive intonation, the perfect 
order of the born folk singer. It was 
some old Gaelic song, a refrain that had 
been preserved like the trunks of the 
primeval oaks in the bogs, such a refrain 
as might claim kinship with the Dresden 
Amen, sung by generations of German 
peasants until at last it reached the 
ears of Richard Wagner, giving birth to a 
classic. As he sang Denis Donohoe raised 
his swarthy face, his profile sharp against 


48 WAYSlbERS 

the pale sky, his eyes, half in rapture like 
all folk singers, ranging over the hills, his 
long throat palpitating, swelling and 
slackening like the throat of a bird quiver- 
ing in song. Then a light from the sash- 
less windows of Mrs. Deely’s cabin shone 
faintly and silence again brooded over the 
place. When he reached the cabin Denis 
Donohoe dismounted and walked into the 
kitchen, his eyes bright, his steps so eager 
that he became conscious of it and pulled 
up at once. 

Mrs. Deely was sitting by the fire, her 
knitting needles busy. Denis Donohoe 
sat down beside her. While they were 
speaking a young girl came from the only 
room in the house, and, crossing the 
kitchen, stood beside the open fireplace. 

44 Agnes had great news from Australia 
from Mary,** Mrs. Deely said. “ She 
enclosed the price of the passage from this 
place to Sydney.” 

“ 1 will be making the voyage the end 
of this month, 44 the girl herself added. 

There was an awkward silence, during 
which Mrs. Deely carefully piloted one of 
her needles through an intricate turn in the 
heel of the sock. 


BOTH SIDES OF THE POND 49 


“Well, I wish you luck, Agnes,** Denis 
Donohoe said at last, and then gave a 
queer odd little laugh, a little laugh that 
made Mrs. Deely regard him quickly and 
seriously. She noticed that he had his 
eyes fixed on the ground. 

“ It will be a great change from this 
place,’’ the girl said, fingering something 
on the mantelpiece. “ Mary says Sydney 
is a wonderful big city.** 

Denis Donohoe slowly lifted his eyes, 
taking in the shape of the girl from the 
bare feet to the bright ribbon that was tied 
in her hair. What he saw was a slim 
girl, her limbs showing faintly in the folds 
of a cheap, thin skirt, a loose, small shawl 
resting on the shoulders, her bosom heav- 
ing gently where the shawl did not meet, 
her profile delicate and faint in the light 
of the fire, her eyes, suddenly turned upon 
him, being the eyes of a girl conscious of 
his eyes, her low breath the sweet breath 
of a girl stepping into her womanhood. 

“Well, God prosper you, Agnes Deely,** 
Denis Donohoe said after some time, and 
rose from his seat. 

The two women came out on the road 
to see him off. He did not dally, but 


50 WAYS1DERS 

jumped on to the front of the cart and 
rattled away. 

Overhead the sky was winter clear, the 
stars merry, eternal, the whole heaven 
brilliant in its silent, stupendous song, its 
perpetual Magnificat; but Denis Donohoe 
made the rest of the journey in a black 
silence, gloom in the rigid figure, the 
stooping shoulders, the dangling legs; and 
the hills seemed to draw their grim 
shadows around his tragic ride to the 
lonely light in his mother’s cabin on the 
verge of the dead brown bog. 

II 

There was a continuous clatter of 
conversation that rose and fell and broke 
like the waves on the beach ; there was the 
dull shuffling of uneasy feet on the ground, 
the tinkling of glasses, the rattle of bottles, 
and over it all the half hysterical laugh of a 
tipsy woman. Above the racket a pene- 
trating, quivering voice was raised in song. 

Now and again bleary eyes were raised 
to the stage, shadowy in a fog of tobacco 
smoke. The figure on the boards strutted 
about, made some fantastic steps, the face 


BOTH SIDES OF THE POND 51 


pallid in the streaky light, the mouth 
scarlet as a tulip for a moment as it 
opened wide, the muscles about the lips 
wiry and distinct from much practice, the 
words of the song coming in a vehement 
nasal falsetto and in a brogue acquired in 
the Bowery. The white face of the man 
who accompanied the singer on the piano 
was raised for a moment in a tired gesture 
that was also a protest; in the eyes of the 
singer as they met those of the accom- 
panist was an expression of cynical Celtic 
humour ; in the smouldering gaze of the 
pianist was the patient, stubborn soul of 
the Slav. The look between these enter- 
tainers, one from Connacht the other from 
Poland, was a little act of mutual com- 
miseration and a mutual expression of 
contempt for the noisy descendants of the 
Lost Tribes who made merry in the place. 

A Cockney who had exchanged Hounds- 
ditch for the Bowery leered up broadly at 
the Celt prancing about the stage. He 
turned to the companion who sat drinking 
with him, a tall, bony half-caste, her black 
eyes dancing in a head that quivered from 
an ague acquired in Illinois. 

" *E*s all ryght, is Paddy/* said the 


52 


WAYSIDERS 


voice from Houndsditch. He pointed a 
thumb that was a certificate of villainy in 
the direction of the stage. 

“Sure,” said the coloured lady, whose 
ancestry rambled back away Alabama. 
She looked up at the stage with her bold 
eyes. 

“ I know him,” she said, thoughtfully. 
“ And I like him,” she added grinning. 
“We all like him. He’s one of the boys.” 

“Wot price me?” said the Hounds- 
ditch man. 

“ Oh, you’re good, too,” said the 
coloured lady. “ Blow in another cock- 
tail, honey.” She struck her breast where 
the uneasy bone showed through the dusky 
skin. “ I’ve a fearful thirst right there.” 

Little puckers gathered about the small, 
humorous eyes of the Cockney as he looked 
at her. “ My,” he said, “ you ’ave got 
a thirst and a capacity. Ole Sahara!” 

The coloured lady raised the cocktail to 
her fat lips, and as she did so there was a 
sudden racket, men shouting, women 
clapping their hands, the voice of the tipsy 
woman dominant in its hysteria over the 
uproar. The singer was bowing profuse 
acknowledgments from the stage, his eyes. 


BOTH SIDES OF THE POND 53 

sly in their cynical humour, upon the face 
of the Slav at the piano, his head thrown 
back, the pallor of his face ghastly. 

The lady from Alabama joined in the 
tribute to the singer. 

** ’Core, ’core,” cried Ole Sahara, rais- 
ing her glass in the dim vapour. ” Here’s 
to Denis Donohoe!” 


THE WHITE GOAT 

I 

E white goat stood in a little 
clearing closed in by a ring 
of whins on the hillside. Her 
head swayed from side to 
side like the slow motion of 
the pendulum of a great clock. The legs 
were a little spread, the knees bent, the 
sides slack, the snout grey and dry, the 
udder limp. 

The Herd knew the white goat was in 
great agony. She had refused the share 
of bran he had brought her, had turned 
away from the armful of fresh ivy leaves 
his little daughter held out to her. He 
had desisted from the milking, she had 
moaned so continuously. 

Some days before the Herd had found 
the animal injured on the hill; the pre- 
vious night he had heard the labourers 
making a noise, shouting and singing, as 
they crossed from the tillage fields. He 
knew what had happened when he had 



THE WHITE GOAT 55 

seen the marks of their hob-nailed boots on 
her body. She was always a sensitive 
brute, of a breed that came from the low- 
lands. The sombre eyes of the Herd 
glowed in a smouldering passion as he 
stood helplessly by while the white goat 
swung her head from side to side. 

He gathered some dry bracken and 
spread a bed of it near the white goat. It 
would be unkind to allow her to lie on the 
wet grass when the time came that she 
could no longer stand. He looked up at 
the sky and marked the direction of the 
wind. It had gone round to the west. 
Clouds were beginning to move across the 
sky. There was a vivid light behind the 
mountains. The air was still. It would 
rain in the night. He had thought for the 
white goat standing there in the darkness, 
swaying her head in agony, the bracken 
growing sodden at her feet, the rain beat- 
ing into her eyes. It was a cold place and 
wind-swept. Whenever the white goat 
had broken her tether she had flown from 
it to the lowlands. He remembered how, 
while leading her across a field once, she 
had drawn back in some terror when they 
had come to a pool of water. 


WAYSIDERS 


The Herd looked at his little daughter. 
The child had drawn some distance away, 
the ivy leaves fallen from her bare arms. 
He was conscious that some fear had made 
her eyes round and bright. What was it 
that the child feared? He guessed, and 
marvelled that a child should understand 
the strange thing that was about to happen 
up there on the hill. The knowledge of 
Death was shining instinctively in the 
child’s eyes. She was part of the still- 
ness and greyness that was creeping over 
the hillside. 

“We will take the white goat to the 
shelter of the stable,” the Herd said. 

The child nodded, the fear still linger- 
ing in her eyes. He untied the tether and 
laid his hand on the horn of the goat. She 
answered to the touch, walking patiently 
but unsteadily beside him. 

After a while the child followed, taking 
the other horn, gently, like her father, for 
she had all his understanding of and near- 
ness to the dumb animals of the fields. 
They came slowly and silently. The light 
failed rapidly as they came down the hill. 
Everything was merged in a shadowy 
vagueness, the colour of the white goat 


THE WHITE GOAT bl 

between the two dim figures alone pro- 
claiming itself. A kid bleated somewhere 
in the distance. It was the cry of a young 
thing for its suckle, and the Herd saw that 
for a moment the white goat raised her 
head, the instinct of her nature moving 
her. Then she tottered down the hill in 
the darkness. 

When they reached the front of the 
stable the white goat backed painfully 
from the place. The Herd was puzzled 
for a moment. Then he saw the little 
pool of water in a faint glimmer before 
their feet. He brought the animal to one 
side, avoiding it, and she followed the 
pressure of his directing hand. 

He took down a lantern that swung 
from the rafters of the stable and lighted 
it. In a corner he made a bed of fresh 
straw. The animal leaned over a little 
against the wall, and they knew she was 
grateful for the shelter and the support. 
Then the head began to sway in a weary 
rhythm from side to side as if the pain 
drove it on. Her breath quickened, broke 
into little pants. He noted the thin 
vapour that steamed from about her body. 
The Herd laid his hand on her snout. It 


58 


WAYSIDERS 


was dry and red hot. He turned away, 
leading the child by the hand, the lantern 
swinging from the other, throwing long 
yellow streaks of light about the gloom of 
the stable. He closed the door softly 
behind him. 

11 

It was late that night when the Herd 
got back from his rounds of the pastures. 
His boots soaked in the wet ground and 
the clothes clung to his limbs, for the rain 
had come down heavily. A rumble of 
thunder sounded over the hills as he raised 
the latch of his door. He felt glad he had 
not left the white goat tethered in the whins 
on the hill. 

His little daughter had gone to sleep. 
His wife told him the child on being put 
to bed had wept bitterly, but refused to 
confess the cause of her grief. The Herd 
said nothing, but he knew the child had 
wept for the white goat. The thought of 
the child’s emotion moved him, and he 
turned out of the house again, standing 
in the darkness and the rain. Why had 
they attacked the poor brute? He asked 
the question over and over again, but only 


THE WHITE GOAT 


59 


the rain beat in his face and around him 
was darkness, mystery. Then he heard 
the voices higher up on the side of the 
hill, first a laugh, then some shouts and 
cries. A thick voice raised the refrain of 
a song, and it came booming through the 
murky atmosphere. The Herd could hear 
the words : 

Where are the legs with which you run? 
Hurroo ! Hurroo ! 

Where are the legs with which you run? 
Hurroo ! Hurroo ! 

Where are the legs with which you run 
When first you went to carry a gun ? 
Indeed, your dancing days are done ! 
Och, Johnny, I hardly k neW U e • 


And then came the chorus like a roar 
down the hills : 

With drums and guns, and guns and 
drum 

The enemy nearly slew ye; 

My darling dear, you look so queer, 

Och, Johnny, I hardly k neW 1 


60 


WAYS1DERS 


The voices of the labourers passing from 
the tillage fields died away, and the rumble 
of thunder came down more frequently 
from the hills. The Herd crossed his 
garden, his boots sinking in the soft 
ground. Half way across he paused, for 
a loud cry had dominated the fury of the 
breaking storm. His ears were quick for 
the cries of animals in distress. He went 
on rapidly toward the stable. 

The ground grew more sloppy and a 
thin stream of water came from the rim 
of his soft black hat, streaming down his 
face. He noted the flashes of lightning 
overhead. Through it all the cry of the 
white goat sounded, with that weird, 
vibrating “mag-gag “ that was the tradi- 
tional note of her race. It had a powerful 
appeal for the Herd. It stirred a feeling 
of passion within him as he hurried 
through the rain. 

How they must have lacerated her, a 
poor brute chained to the sod, at the mercy 
of their abuse ! The red row of marks 
along her gams, raw and terrible, sprang 
to his sight out of the darkness. Ven- 
geance, vengeance ! He gripped his 
powerful hands, opening and closing the 


THE WHITE GOAT 


61 


fists. Then he was conscious of something 
in the storm and the darkness that robbed 
him of his craving for personal vengeance. 
All that belonged to the primitive man 
welled up in him. He knew that in the 
heart of the future there lurked a reckon- 
ing — something, somebody — that would 
count the tally at the appointed time. 
Then he had turned round the gable of 
the stable. He saw the ghostly white 
thing, shadowy in the blackness, lying 
prostrate before the door. He stood still, 
his breath drawn inward. 

There was a movement in the white 
shape. He could discern the blurred out- 
line of the head of the animal as she 
raised it up a little. There was a low 
moan followed by a great cry. The Herd 
stood still, terror in his heart. For he inter- 
preted that cry in all the terrible inarticu- 
late consciousness of his own being. That 
cry sounded in his ears like an appeal to 
all the generations of wronged dumb 
things that had ever come under the lash 
of the tyranny of men. It was the protest 
of the brute creation against humanity, and 
to the Herd it was a judgment. Then his 
eyes caught a murky gleam beside the 


62 


WAYSIDERS 


fallen white shape, and the physical sense 
of things jumped back to his mind. 

He remembered that in wet weather a 
pool of water always gathered before the 
stable door. He remembered that there 
was a glimmer of it there when he had led 
the white goat into the stable. He remem- 
bered how she had shown fear of it. 

He stooped down over the white goat 
where she lay. Thin wisps of her hair 
floated about looking like dim wraiths 
against the blackness of the pool. He 
caught a look of the brown eyes and was 
aware that the udder and teats bulged up 
from the water. He sank down beside 
her, the water making a splash as his 
knees dropped into the place. The 
animal raised her head a little and with 
pain, for the horns seemed to weigh like 
lead. But it was an acknowledgment that 
she was conscious of his presence; then 
the head fell back, a gurgle sounding over 
one of the ears. 

The Herd knew what had happened, 
and it was all very tragical to his mind. 
His wife had come out to the stable for 
something, and had left the door open 
behind her. The white goat, goaded by 


THE WHITE GOAT 


63 


the growing pain, had staggered out the 
door, perhaps feeling some desire for the 
open fields in her agony. Then she had 
seen before the threshold of the door that 
which had always been a horror to her — 
a pool of water. The Herd could see her 
tottering and swaying and then falling into 
it with a cry, fulfilling her destiny. He 
wondered if he himself had the same 
instinct for the things that would prove 
fatal to him ? Why was he always so 
nervous when he stooped to or lay upon 
the ground? Why did it always give him 
a feeling that he would be trampled under 
the hooves of stampeding cattle rounded 
up for treatment for the warble fly? He 
trembled as he heard the beat of hooves 
on the ground behind him. He peered 
about and for a while did not recognise the 
shape that moved restlessly about in the 
darkness. He heard the neigh of the 
brood mare. He knew then she had been 
hovering about the stable afraid to go in 
out of the storm. She was afraid to go in 
because of the thing that lay before the 
stable door. He heard the answering call 
of the young foal in the stable, and he 
knew that it, too, was afraid to come out 


64 


WAYSIDERS 


even at the call of its dam. Death was 
about in that night of storm, and all things 
seemed conscious of it. 

He stooped down over the white goat 
and worked his hands under her shoulders. 
He lifted her up and felt the strain all over 
his frame, the muscles springing tense on 
his arms. She was a dead weight, and he 
had always prided on her size. His 
knees dug into the puddle in the bottom 
of the pool as he felt the pressure on his 
haunches. He strained hard as he got one 
of his feet under him. With a quick effort 
he got the other foot into position and rose 
slowly, lifting the white form out of the 
pool. The shaggy hair hung from the 
white goat, limp and reeking, numerous 
thin streams of water making a little ripple 
as they fell. The limbs of the Herd 
quivered under the weight, he staggered 
back, his heavy boots grinding in the 
gravel; then he set his teeth, the limbs 
steadied themselves, he swayed uncer- 
tainly for a moment, then staggered across 
the stable door, conscious of the hammer 
strokes of the heart of the white goat beat- 
ing against his own heart. He laid her 
down in the bed of straw and heard the 


THE WHITE GOAT 


65 


young foal bounding out of the stable in 
terror. The Herd stood in the place, the 
sweat breaking out on his forehead, then 
dropping in great beads. 

The white goat began to moan. The 
Herd was aware from the rustling of the 
straw that her limbs were working con- 
vulsively. He knew from the nature of 
her wounds that her death would be oro- 
longed, her agonies extreme. What if he 
put her out of pain? It would be all over 
in a moment. His hand went to his 
pocket, feeling it on the outside. He made 
out the shape of the knife, but hesitated. 

One of the hooves of the white goat 
struck him on the ankle as her limbs 
worked convulsively. His hand went 
into his pocket and closed around the 
weapon. He would need to be quick and 
sure, to have a steady hand, to make a 
swift movement. He allowed himself 
some moments to decide. Then the blade 
of the knife shot back with a snap. 

The sound seemed to reach the white 
goat in all its grim significance. She 
struggled to her feet, moaning more loudly. 
The Herd began to breathe hard. He was 
afraid she would cry out even as she had 


66 


WAYSIDERS 


cried out as she lay in the pool before the 
stable door. The terror of the things that 
made up that cry broke in upon the Herd. 
He shook with fear of it. Then he 
stooped swiftly, his fingers nervously feel- 
ing over the delicate course of the throat 
of the white goat. His hands moved a 
little backwards and forwards in the dark- 
ness. He felt the hot stream on his hands, 
then the animal fell without a sound, her 
horns striking against the wall. He stood 
over her for a moment and was conscious 
that his hands were wet. Then he remem- 
bered with a shudder that the whole 
tragedy of the night had been one of rains 
and pools and water and clinging damp 
things, of puddles and sweats and blood. 
Even now the knife he held in his fingers 
was dripping. He let it fall. It fell with 
a queer thud, sounding of flesh, of a dead 
body. It had fallen on the dead body of 
the white goat. He turned with a groan 
and made his way uncertainly for the 
stable door. 

At the door he stood, thoughts crowd- 
ing in upon him, questions beating upon 
his brain and giving no time for answer. 
Around him was darkness, mystery, 


THE WHITE GOAT 


67 


Death. What right had he to thrust his 
hand blindly into the heart of this mystery? 
Who had given him the power to hasten 
the end, to summon Death before its time? 
Had not Nature her own way for counting 
out the hours and the minutes? Had not 
she, or some other power, appointed an 
hour for the white goat to die ? She would 
live, even in agony, until they could bear 
her up no longer; and having died Nature 
would pass her through whatever channel 
her laws had ordained. Had not the 
white goat made her last protest against 
his interference when she had risen to her 
feet in her death agony ? And if the 
white goat, dumb beast that she was, had 
suffered wrong at the hands of man, then 
there v/as, the Herd now knew, a Power 
deliberate and inexorable, scrupulous in 
its delicate adjustment of right and wrong, 
that would balance the account at the 
appointed audit. 

He had an inarticulate understanding 
of these things as he moved from the stable 
door. He tripped over a barrow unseen 
in the darkness and fell forward on his 
face into the field. As he lay there he 
heard the thudding of hooves on the 


68 


WAYSIDERS 


ground. He rose, dizzy and unnerved, to 
see the dim shapes of some cattle that had 
gathered down about the place from the 
upland. He felt the rain beating upon his 
face, the clothes hung dank and clammy 
to his limbs. His boots soaked and 
slopped when he stepped. A boom of 
thunder sounded overhead and a vivid 
flash of lightning lit up for an instant a 
great elm tree. He saw all its branches 
shining with water, drops glistening along 
a thousand stray twigs. Then the voices 
of the labourers returning over the hills 
broke in upon his ears. He heard their 
shouts, the snatches of their songs, their 
noise, all the ribaldry of men merry in 
their drink. 

The Herd groped through the darkness 
for his house like a half-blind man, his 
arms out before him, and a sudden gust of 
wind that swept the hillside shrieked about 
the blood of the white goat that was still 
wet upon his hands. 


THE SICK CALL 

MAN wearing the grey frieze 
coat and the soft black hat of 
the peasantry rode up to the 
Monastery gate on a wiry, 
long-tailed nag. When he 
rang the bell at the hall-door there was a 
clatter of sandals "on a flagged hall inside. 

The door was opened by a lay Brother 
in a brown habit, a girdle about the waist 
from which a great Rosary beads was sus- 
pended. The peasant turned a soft black 
hat nervously in his hands as he delivered 
his message. The Friar who visited ailing 
people was, he said, wanted. A young 
man was lying very ill away up on the 
hills. Nothing that had been done for 
him was of any account. He was now 
very low, and his people were troubled. 
Maybe the Friar would come and raise his 
holy hands over Kevin Hooban? 

The peasant gave some account of how 
the place might be reached. Half an hour 
later the Spanish Friar was on a side-car 
on his way to the mountain. I was on the 



70 


WAYS1DERS 


other side of the car. The Spanish Friar 
spoke English badly. The peasantry — 
most of whom had what they called 
Bearla briste (broken English) — could 
understand only an occasional word of 
what he said. At moments of complete 
deadlock I, a Mass server, acted as a sort 
of interpreter. For this, and for whatever 
poor companionship I afforded, I found 
myself on the sick call. 

The road brought us by a lake which 
gave a chilly air to the landscape in the 
winter day, then past a strip of country 
meagrely wooded. We turned into a 
narrow road that struck the hills at once, 
skirting a sloping place covered with 
scrub and quite dark, like a black patch 
on the landscape. After that it was a 
barren pasture, prolific only in bleached 
boulders of rocks, of bracken that lay 
wasted, of broom that was sere. It was 
a very still afternoon, not a breath of wind 
stirring. Sheep looking bulky in their 
heavy fleeces lay about in the grass, so 
motionless that they might be the work of 
a vigorous sculptor. The branches of the 
trees were so still, so delicate in their out- 
lines against the pale sky, that they made 


THE SICK CALL 


7 ) 


one uneasy; they seemed to have lost the 
art of waving, as if leaves should never 
again flutter upon them. A net- work of 
low stone walls put loosely together, mark- 
ing off the absurdly small fields, straggled 
over the face of the landscape, looking in 
the curious evening light like a great grey 
web fantastically spun by some humorous 
spider. The brown figure of a shepherd 
with a sheep crook in his hand rose up on 
a distant hill. He might be a sacred figure 
in the red chancel of the western sky. In 
a moment he was gone, leaving one doubt- 
ful if he had not been an illusion. A long 
army of starlings trailed rapidly across the 
horizon, a wriggling motion marking their 
course like the motion in the body of a 
gigantic snake. Everything on the hills 
seemed, as the light reddened and failed, 
to grow vast, grotesque. The silence 
which reigned over it all was oppressive. 

Stray cabins skirted the roadside. Some 
people moved about them, leaving one 
the impression of a remoteness that was 
melancholy. The women in their bare 
feet made little curtesies to the Friar. 
Children in long dresses ran into the cabins 
at sight of the strangers, like rabbits 


72 


WAYSIDERS 


scuttling back to their burrows. Having 
found refuge they looked out over the half- 
doors as the car passed, their eyes spark- 
ling, humorous, full of an alert inquisitive- 
ness, their faces fresh as the wind. 

A group of people swung along the road, 
speaking volubly in Irish, giving one the 
impression that they had made a great 
journey across the range of hills. They 
gave us a salutation that was also a bless- 
ing. We pulled up the car and they 
gathered about the Friar, looking up at 
him from under their broad-brimmed 
black hats, the countenances for the most 
part dark and primitive, the type more of 
Firbolg than Milesian origin. 

When the Friar spoke to them they 
paused, shuffled, looked at each other, 
puzzled. Half unconsciously 1 repeated 
the priest’s words for them. 

“ Oh, you are heading for the house 
where Kevin Hcoban is lying sick?” 

“Yes.” 

” The priest is going to read over him?” 

” Yes.” 

” And maybe they are expecting him?” 

“Yes.” 

"We heard it said he is very low, a 
strangeness coming over him.” 


THE SICK CALL 


73 


“ Is the house far?’* 

44 No, not too far when you are once 
a-past the demesne wall, with the ivy upon 
it. Keep on the straight road. You will 
come to a stream and a gullet and a road 
clipping into the hills from it to the right; 
go past that road. West of that you will 
see two poplar trees. Beyond them you 
will come to a boreen. Turn down that 
boreen ; it is very narrow, and you had best 
turn up one side of the car and both sit 
together, or maybe the thorny hedges 
would be slashing you on the face in the 
darkness of the place. At the end of the 
boreen you will come to a shallow river, 
and it having a shingle bottom. Put the 
mare to it and across with you. Will you 
be able to remember all that ?* 4 

44 Yes, thanks.** 

44 Very well. Listen now. When you 
are across the river with the shingly 
bottom draw up on the back meadow. 
You will see a light shining to the north. 
Let one bawl out of you and Patch Keetly 
will be at hand to take the mare by the 
head. He will bring you to the house 
where Kevin Hooban is lying in his 
trouble. And God grant, Father, that you 


WAYSIDERS 


74 

will be able to reach out a helping hand 
to him, and to put your strength in holy 
words between him and them that has a 
hold of him; he is a fine young man with- 
out fault or blemish, and the grandest 
maker of music that ever put a lip to the 
fideog. Keep an eye out for the poplar 
trees.’* 

“Very good. God be with you.” 

“God speed you kindly.” 

We drove on. As we did so we tried to 
piece the directions together. The two 
poplar trees appeared to touch some 
curious strain of humour in the Spanish 
Friar. But it all came to pass as the 
prophet had spoken. We came to the ivy 
wall, to the stream, the gullet, the road that 
clipped into the hills to the right, and a 
long way beyond it the two poplar trees, 
tall, shadowy, great in their loneliness on 
the hills, sentinels that appeared to guard 
some mountain frontier. The light had 
rapidly gone. The whole landscape had 
swooned away into a vague, dark chaos. 
Overhead the stars began to show, the air 
was cutting; it bit with frost. And then 
we turned down the dark boreen, the mare 
venturing into it with some misgiving. 1 


THE SICK CALL 75 

think the Friar was praying in an under- 
tone in his native Basque as we passed 
through the narrow mountain boreen. At 
the end of it we came to the shallow river 
with the shingly bottom. Again the mare 
required some persuasion before she ven- 
tured in, the wheels crunching on the 
gravel, her fetlocks splashing the slow- 
moving, chocolate-coloured water. On 
the opposite bank we reached a sort of 
plateau, seen vaguely in the light. I “let 
a bawl out of me.” It was like the cry of 
some lonely, lost bird on the wing. The 
Friar shook with laughter. I could feel 
the little rock of his body on the springs of 
the car. A figure came suddenly out of 
the darkness and silently took the mare by 
the head. The car moved on across the 
vague back meadow. Patch Keetly was 
piloting us to a light that shone in the 
north. 

People were standing about the front of 
the long, low-thatched house. Lights 
shone in all the windows, the door stood 
open. The people did not speak or draw 
near as we got down from the car. There 
was a fearful silence about the place. The 
grouping of the people expressed mystery. 


76 WAYSIDERS 

They eyed us from their curiously aloof 
angles. They seemed as much a part of 
the atmosphere of the hills, as fixed in the 
landscape as the little clumps of furze or 
the two lonely poplars that mounted guard 
over the mouth of the boreen. 

“Won’t the holy Father be going into 
the house?” Patch Keetly asked. “ 1 will 
unyoke the mare and give her a share of 
oats in the stable.” 

The Friar spoke to me in an undertone, 
and we crossed to the open door of the 
house. 

The door led directly into the kitchen. 
Two women were standing well back from 
the door, something respectful, a little 
mysterious and a little fearful in their atti- 
tude. Their eyes were upon the Friar, 
and from their expressions they might have 
expected some sort of apparition to cross 
the threshold. They made a curtesy to 
him, dipping their bodies in a little sudden 
jerk. Nobody else was in the kitchen, 
and, despite the almost oppressive for- 
mality of their attitude, they somehow con- 
veyed a sense of the power of women in 
the household in time of crisis. They 
were in supreme command, the men all 


THE SICK CALL 


77 


outside, when a life had to be battled for. 
The elder of the women came forward and 
spoke to the priest, bidding him welcome. 
The reception looked as if it had been 
rehearsed, both women painfully anxious 
to do what was right. 

There appeared some little misunder- 
standing, and I was too dazed with the 
cold — which I had only fully felt when 1 
got off the car and found my legs cramped 
— to come to the rescue as interpreter. The 
Spanish Friar was accustomed to these 
little embarrassments, and he had a man- 
ner of meeting them with a smile. The 
misunderstanding and the embarrassment 
seemed to thaw the formality of the recep- 
tion. The women looked relieved. They 
were obviously not expected to say any- 
thing, and they had no fear now that they 
would be put to the ordeal of meeting a 
possibly superior person, one who might 
patronise them, make a flutter in their 
home, appal them by expecting a great 
deal of attention, in short, be “ very Engli- ' 
fled/* The Spanish Friar had very quick 
intuitions and some subtle way of his own 
for conveying his emotions and his require- 
ments, He was ir^ spirit nearer to the 


78 


WAYSIDERS 


peasantry than many of the Friars who 
themselves came from the flesh of the 
peasantry. And these two peasant women, 
very quick in both their intuitions and 
their intelligence, seemed at the very 
moment of the breakdown of the first 
attempt at conversation to understand him 
and he to understand them. The elder of 
the women led the priest into a room off 
the kitchen where I knew Kevin Hooban 
lay ill. 

The younger woman put a chair before 
the fire and invited me to sit there. 
While I sat before the fire I could hear the 
quick but quiet step of her feet about the 
kitchen, the little swish of her garments. 
Presently she drew near to the fire and 
held out a glass. It contained what looked 
like discoloured water, very like the water 
in the shallow fiver with the shingly 
bottom. 1 must have expressed some 
little surprise, even doubt, in my face, for 
she held the glass closer, as if reassuring 
me. There was something that inspired 
confidence in her manner. I took the glass 
and sipped the liquid. It left a half- 
burned, peaty taste in the mouth, and 
somehow smacked very native in its 


THE SICK CALL 


79 


flavour. I thought of the hills, the lonely 
bushes, the slow movement of the choco- 
late-coloured river, the men with the primi- 
tive dark faces under the broad-brimmed 
hats, their mysterious, even dramatic way 
of grouping themselves around the lighted 
house. The peaty liquid seemed a brew 
out of the same atmosphere. I knew it 
was poteen. And in a moment 1 felt it 
coursing through my body, warming my 
blood. The young woman stood by the 
fire, half in shadow, half in the yellow 
flame of the turf fire, her attitude quiet 
but tense, very alert for any movement in 
the sick room. 

The door of the room stood slightly 
open, and the low murmur of the Friar’s 
voice reciting a prayer in Latin could be 
heard. The young woman sighed, her 
bosom rising and falling in a quick breath 
of pain. Then she made the sign of the 
Cross. 

“ My brother is very low,” she said, 
sitting down by the fire after a time. Her 
eyes were upon the fire. Her face was less 
hard than the faces I had seen on the hills. 
She looked good-natured, 

"Is he long ill?” 


80 


WAYSIDERS 


" This long while. But to look at him 
you would conceit he was as sound as a 
trout. First he was moody, moping about 
the place, and no way wishful for com- 
pany. Hours he would spend below at the 
butt of the meadow, nearby the water, 
sitting under the thorn bush and he play- 
ing upon the fideog. Then he began to 
lose the use of his limbs, and crying he 
used to be within in the room. Some of 
the people who have knowledge say he is 
lying under a certain influence. He can- 
not speak now. The holy Friar will know 
what is best to be done.” 

When the Friar came out of the room 
he was divesting himself of the embroi- 
dered stole he had put over his shoulders. 

The white-capped old woman had 
excitement in her face as she followed him. 

” Kevin spoke,” she said to the other. 
44 He looked up at the blessed man and 
he made an offer to cross himself. 1 could 
not hear the words he was speaking, that 
soft they come from his lips.** 

44 Kevin will live,” said the younger 
woman, catching some of the excitement 
of her mother. She stood tensely, drawn 
up near the fire, gazing vacantly but 


81 


THE SICK CALL 

intently across the kitchen, as if she would 
will it so passionately that Kevin should 
live that he would live. She moved sud- 
denly, swiftly, noiselessly across the floor 
and disappeared into the room. 

The priest sat by the fire for some time, 
the old woman standing by, respectful, but 
her eyes riveted upon him as if she would 
pluck from him all the secrets of 
existence. The priest was conscious, a 
little uneasy, and a little amused, at 
this abnormal scrutiny. Some shuffling 
sounded outside the house as if a drove of 
shy animals had come down from the 
mountain and approached the dwelling. 
Presently the door creaked. I looked at 
it uneasily. The atmosphere of the place, 
the fumes of the poteen in my head, the 
heat of the fire, had given me a more 
powerful impression of the mysterious, the 
weird. Nothing showed at the door for 
some time, but I kept my eye upon it. 1 
was rewarded. A cluster of heads and 
shoulders of men, swarthy, gloomy, some 
awful foreboding in the expression of their 
faces, hung round the door and peered 
silently down at the Friar seated at the fire. 
Again I had the sense that they would not 


82 


WAYSIDERS 


be surprised to see any sort of apparition. 
The heads disappeared, and there was 
more shuffling outside the windows as if 
shy animals were hovering around the 
house. The door creaked again, and 
another bunch of heads and shoulders made 
a cluster about it. They looked, as far as 
I could see them, the same group of heads, 
but I had the feeling that they were fresh 
spectators. They were taking their view 
in turn. 

The priest ventured some conversation 
with the woman of the house. 

“ Do you think will Kevin live, Father?’* 

“ He should have more courage,” the 
Friar said. 

“We will all have more courage now 
that you have read over him.” 

“ Keep the faith. It is all in the hands 
of God. It is only what is pleasing to Him 
that will come to pass.” 

“ Blessed be His Holy Name.” The 
woman inclined her head as she spoke the 
words. The priest rose to go. 

The young girl came out of the room. 
“ Kevin will live,” she said. “ He spoke 
to me.” Her eyes were shining as she 
gazed at her mother. 


THE SICK CALL 


83 


** Could you tell what words he spoke?” 

I could. He said, * In the month of 
April, when the water runs clear in the 
river, I will be playing the fideog. ’ That 
is what Kevin said.” 

” When the river is clear — playing the 
fideog,” the elder woman repeated, some 
look of trouble, almost terror, in her face. 
” The cross of Christ between him and that 
fideog ! * * 

The priest was moving to the door and 
I followed. As I did so I got a glimpse, 
through the partly open room door, of the 
invalid. I saw the long, pallid, nervous- 
looking face of a young man on the pillow. 
A light fell on his brow, and I thought it 
had the height, and the arch, the good 
shape sloping backward to the long head, 
of a musician* The eyes were shining 
with an unnatural brightness. It was the 
face of an artist, an idealist, intensified, 
idealised, by illness, by suffering, by 
excitement, and I wondered if the vision 
which Kevin Hooban had of playing the 
fideog by the river, when it ran clear in 
April, were a vision of his heaven or his 
earth. 


84 


WAYSIDERS 


We left the house. Patch Keetly was 
taking the loop from a trace as he har- 
nessed the mare in the yellow light of a 
stable lantern. We mounted the car. The 
groups of men drew about us, their move- 
ments again sounding like the shuffling of 
shy animals on the sod, and they broke 
silence for the first time. 

There was more said about Kevin 
Hooban. Flrom various allusions, vague 
and unsubstantial, little touches in the kind, 
musical voices, I gathered that they 
believed him to be under the influence of 
the Good People. The sense of mystery 
and ill-omen came back to me, and I 
carried away a memory of the dark figures 
of the people grouped about the lonely 
lighted house, standing there in sorrow for 
the flute-player, the grass at their feet 
sparkling with frost. 


THE SHOEMAKER 

BEYING a domestic mandate, 
Padna wrapped a pair of 
boots in paper and took them 
to the shoemaker, who 
operated behind a window in 

a quiet street. 

The shoemaker seemed to Padna a 
melancholy man. He wore great spec- 
tacles, had a white patch of forehead, and 
two great bumps upon it. Padna con- 
cluded that the bumps had been encouraged 
by the professional necessity of constantly 
hanging his head over his knees. 

The shoemaker invited Padna to sit 
down in his workshop, which he did. 
Padna thought it must be very dreary to sit 
there all day among old and new boots, 
pieces of leather, boxes of brass eyelets, 
awls, knives, and punchers. No wondei 
the shoemaker was a melancholy-looking 
man. 

Padna maintained a discreet silence 
while the shoemaker turned his critical 
glasses upon the boots he had brought him 



86 


WAYSIDERS 


for repair. Suddenly the great glasses 
were turned upon Padna himself, and the 
shoemaker addressed him in a voice of 
amazing pleasantness. 

“When did you hear the cuckoo?** he 
asked. 

Padna, at first startled, pulled himself 
together. “ Yesterday,*’ he replied. 

“ Did you look at the sole of your boot 
when you heard him?** the shoemaker 
asked. 

“ No,** said Padna. 

“Well,** said the shoemaker, “ when- 
ever you hear the cuckoo for the first time 
in the spring always look at the sole of 
your right boot. There you will find a 
hair. And that hair will tell you the kind 
of a wife you will get.*’ 

The shoemaker picked a long hair from 
the sole of Padna’s boot and held it up in 
the light of the window. 

“ You’ll be married to a brown-haired 
woman,’* he said. Padna looked at the 
hair without fear, favour, or affection, and 
said nothing. 

The shoemaker took his place on his 
bench, selected a half -made shoe, got it 
between his knees, aivd began to stitch with 


THE SHOEMAKER 


87 


great gusto. Padna admired the skilful 
manner in which he made the holes with 
his awl and drew the wax-end with rapid 
strokes. Padna abandoned the impression 
that the shoemaker was a melancholy man. 
He thought he never sat near a man so 
optimistic, so mentally emancipated, so 
detached from the indignity of his 
occupation. 

“ These are very small shoes you are 
stitching,*’ said Padna, making himself 
agreeable. 

“ They are,” said the shoemaker. ” But 
do you know who makes the smallest shoes 
in the world? You don’t? Well, well! 
. . . The smallest shoes in the world 

are made by the clurichaun, a cousin of the 
leprechaun. If you creep up on the west 
side of a fairy fort after the sun has set and 
put your ear to the grass you’ll hear the 
tapping of his hammer. And do you know 
who the clurichaun makes shoes for? You 
don’t? Well, well! . . . He makes 

shoes for the swallows. Oh, indeed they 
do, swallows wear shoes. Twice a year 
swallows wear shoes. They wear them in 
the spring, and again at the fall of the year. 
They wear them when they fly from one 


WAYS1DERS 


88 

world to another. And they cross the Dead 
Sea. Did you ever hear tell of the Dead 
Sea? You did. Well, well! . . . No 

bird ever yet flew across the Dead Sea. 
Any of them that tried it dropped and sank 
like a stone. So the swallows, when they 
come to the Dead Sea, get down on the 
bank, and there the clurichauns have 
millions of shoes waiting for them. The 
swallows put on their shoes and walk across 
the Dead Sea, stepping on bright yellow 
and black stepping-stones that shine across 
the water like a lovely carpet. And do you 
know what the stepping-stones across the 
Dead Sea are ? They are the backs of 
sleeping frogs. And when the swallows 
are all safe across the frogs waken up and 
begin to sing, for then it is known the sum- 
mer will come. Did you never hear that 
before? No? Well, well!” 

A cat, friendly as the shoemaker him- 
self, leapt on to Padna’s lap. The shoe- 
maker shifted the shoe he was stitching 
between his knees, putting the heel where 
the toe had been. 

” Do you know where they first dis- 
covered electricity?” he asked. 

” In America,” Padna ventured. 


THE SHOEMAKER 


89 


“ No. In the back of a cat. He was a 
big buck Chinese cat. Every hair on him 
was seven inches long, in colour gold, and 
thick as copper wire. He was the only cat 
who ever looked on the face of the Empress 
of China without blinking, and when the 
Emperor saw that he called him over and 
stroked him on the back. No sooner did 
the Emperor of China stroke the buck cat 
than back he fell on his plush throne, as 
dead as his ancestors. So they called in 
seven wise doctors from the seven wise 
countries of the East to find out what it was 
killed the Emperor. And after seven years 
they discovered electricity in the backbone 
of the cat, and signed a proclamation that 
it was from the shock of it the Emperor had 
died. When the Americans read the pro- 
clamation they decided to do whatever 
killing had to be done as the cat had killed 
the Emperor of China. The Americans 
are like that — all for imitating royal 
families.” 

“ Has this cat any electricity in her?” 
Padna asked. 

“ She has.” said the shoemaker, draw- 
ing his wax-end. “But she’s a civilised 
cat, not like the vulgar fellow in China, 


90 


WAYSIDERS 


and civilised cats hide their electricity much 
as civilised people hide their feelings. But 
one day last summer I saw her showing her 
electricity. A monstrous black rat came 
prowling from the brewery, a bald patch 
on his head and a piece missing from his 
left haunch. To see that fellow coming up 
out of a gullet and stepping up the street, 
in the middle of the broad daylight, you’d 
imagine he was the county inspector of 
police.” 

“And did she fight the rat?” Padna 
asked. 

The shoemaker put the shoe on a last 
and began to tap with his hammer. “ She 
did fight him,” he said. “ She went out 
to him twirling her moustaches. He lay 
down on his back. She lay down on her 
side. They kept grinning and sparring at 
each other like that for half an hour. At 
last the monstrous rat got up in a fury and 
come at her, the fangs stripped. She swung 
round the yard, doubled in two, making 
circles like a Catherine-wheel about him 
until the old blackguard was mesmerised. 
And if you were to see the bulk of her tail 
then, all her electricity gone into it ! She 
caught him with a blow of it under the 


THE SHOEMAKER 


91 


jowl,’ and he fell in a swoon. She stood 
over him, her back like the bend of a hoop, 
the tail beating about her, and a smile on 
the side of her face. And that was the end 
of the monstrous brewery rat.** 

Padna said nothing, but put the cat down 
on the floor. When she made some effort 
to regain his lap he surreptitiously sug- 
gested, with the tip of his boot, that their 
entente was at an end. 

A few drops of rain beat on the window, 
and the shoemaker looked up, his glasses 
shining, the bumps on his forehead gleam- 
ing. “ Do you know the reason God 
makes it rain?’* he asked. 

Padna, who had been listening to the 
conversation of two farmers the evening 
before, replied, “I do. To make turnips 
grow.** 

** Nonsense !** said the shoemaker, reach- 
ing out for an awl. “ God makes it rain to 
remind us of the Deluge. And I don’t mean 
the Deluge that was at all at all. I mean 
the Deluge that is to come. The world will 
be drowned again. The belly-band of the 
sky will give, for that’s what the rainbow 
is, and it only made of colours. Did you 
never know until now what the rainbow 


92 


WAYS1DERS 


was? No? Well, well! . . . As 1 

was saying, when the belly-band of the sky 
bursts the Deluge will come. In one 
minute all the valleys of the earth will be 
filled up. In the second minute the moun- 
tains will be topped. In the third minute 
the sky will be emptied and its skin gone, 
and the earth will be no more. There will 
be no ark, no Noah, and no dove. There 
will be nothing only one great waste of 
grey water and in the middle of it one 
green leaf. The green leaf will be a sign 
that God has gone to sleep, the trouble of 
the world banished from His mind. So 
whenever it rains remember my words.’* 
Padna said he would, and then went 
home. 

II 

When Padna called on the shoemaker for 
the boots that had been left for repair they 
were almost ready. The tips only re- 
mained to be put on the heels. Padna sat 
down in the little workshop, and under the 
agreeable influence of the place he made 
bold to ask the shoemaker if he had grown 
up to be a shoemaker as the geranium had 


THE SHOEMAKER 93 

grown up to be a geranium in its pot on 
the window. 

“What!" exclaimed the shoemaker. 
" Did you never hear tell that I was found 
in the country under a head of cabbage? 
No ! Well, well ! What do they talk to 
you at home about at all?" 

" The most thing they tell me," said 
Padna, "is to go to bed and get up in the 
morning. What is the name of the place 
in the country where they found you?" 

" Gobstown," said the shoemaker. " It 
was the most miserable place within the 
ring of Ireland. It lay under the blight of 
a good landlord, no better. That was its 
misfortune, and especially my misfortune. 
If the Gobstown landlord was not such a 
good landlord it’s driving on the box of an 
empire I would be to-day instead of whack- 
ing tips on the heels of your boots. How 
could that be? I’ll tell you that. 

" In Gobstown the tenants rose up and 
demanded a reduction of rent; the good 
landlord gave it to them. They rose up 
again and demanded another reduction of 
rent; he gave it to them. They went on 
rising up, asking reductions, and getting 
them, until ther<? was no rent left for any- 


94 


WAYSIDERS 


one to reduce. The landlord was as good 
and as poor as our best. 

“ And while all this was going on Gobs- 
town was surrounded by estates where 
there were the most ferocious landlords — 
rack-renting, absentee, evicting landlords, 
landlords as wild as tigers. And these tiger 
landlords were leaping at their tenants and 
their tenants slashing back at them as best 
they could. Nothing, my dear, but blood 
and the music of grape-shot and shouts in 
the night from the jungle. In Gobstown 
we had to sit down and look on, pretend- 
ing, moryah, that we were as happy as the 
day was long. 

“ Not a scalp was ever brought into 
Gobstown. No man of us ever went out on 
an adventure which might bring him home 
again through the mouth of the county jail. 

' Not a secret enterprise that might become 
a great public excitement was ever hatched, 
not to speak of being launched. We had 
not as much as a fife-and-drum band. We 
did not know how to play a tin whistle or 
beat upon the tintinnabulum. We never 
waved a green flag. We had not a branch 
of any kind of a league. We had no men 
of skill to draft a resolution, indite a 


THE SHOEMAKER 95 

threatening letter, draw a coffin, skull, and 
cross-bones, fight a policeman, or even 
make a speech. We were never a delegate 
at a convention, an envoy to America, a 
divisional executive, a deputation, or a 
demonstration. We were nothing. We 
wilted under the blight of our good land- 
lord as the green stalk wilts under the frost 
of the black night. . . . Hand me that 

knife. The one with the wooden handle. 

“ In desperation we used rouse ourselves 
and march into the demonstrations on other 
estates. We were a small and an unknown 
tribe. The Gobstown contingent always 
brought up the rear of the procession — a 
gawky, straggling, bad-stepping, hay-foot, 
straw-foot lot ! The onlookers hardly 
glanced at us. We stood for nothing. We 
had no name. Once we rigged up a banner 
with the words on it, ‘ Gobstown to the 
Front!* but still we were put to the back, 
and when we walked through this town the 
servant girls came out of their kitchens, 
laughed at us, and called out, 4 Gobstown 
to the Back of the Front !* 

44 The fighting men came to us, took us 
aside, and asked us what we were doing 
in Gobstown. We had no case to make. 


96 


WAYSIDERS 


We offered to bring forward our good land- 
lord as a shining example, to lead our lamb 
forward in order that he might show up 
the man-eaters on the other estates. The 
organisers were all hostile. They would 
not allow us into the processions any more. 
If we could bring forward some sort of 
roaring black devil we would be more than 
welcome. Shining examples were not in 
favour. We were sent home in disgrace 
and broke up. As the preachers say, our 
last state was worse than our first. 

“We became sullen and drowsy and fat 
and dull. We got to hate the sight of each 
other, so much so that we began to pay our 
rents behind each other’s backs, at first the 
reduced rents, then, gale day by gale day, 
we got back to the original rent, and kept 
on paying it. Our good landlord took his 
rents and said nothing. Gobstown became 
the most accursed place in all Ireland. 
Brother could not trust brother. And there 
were our neighbours going from one sen- 
sation to another. They were as lively as 
trout, as enterprising as goats, as intelligent 
as Corkmen. They were thin and eager 
and good-tempered. They ate very little, 
drank water, slept well, men with hard 


THE SHOEMAKER 97 

knuckles, clean bowels, and pale eyes. 
Anything they hit went down. They were 
always ready to go to the gallows for each 
other. 

“ I had a famous cousin on one of these 
estates, and I suppose you heard of him? 
You didn’t ! What are they teaching you 
at school at all? Latin grammar? Well, 
well ! . . . My cousin was a clumsy 

fellow with only a little of middling kind 
of brains, but a bit of fight in him. Yet 
look at the way he got on, and look at me, 
shodding little boys like yourself ! I was 
born under a lucky star but my cousin was 
bom under a lucky landlord — a ferocious 
fellow who got into a garret in London and 
kept roaring across at Ireland for more and 
more blood. Every time I thought of that 
old skin of a man howling in the London 
garret I said to myself, ‘ He’ll be the 
making of my cousin.’ And so, indeed, 
he was. Three agents were brought down 
on my cousin’s estate. State trials were 
running like great plays in the courthouse. 
Blood was always up. They had six fife- 
and-drum bands and one brass band. They 
had green and gold banners with harps and 
streamers, and mottoes in yellow lettering, 


98 


WAYSIDERS 


that took four hardy men to carry on a 
windy day. The heads of the Peelers were 
hardly ever out of their helmets. The 
resident magistrate rose one day in the 
bosom of his family, his eyes closed, to say 
grace before meals, and from dint of habit 
he was chanting the Riot Act over the table 
until his wife flew at him with, 4 How dare 
you, George ! The mutton is quite all 
right I * Little boys no bigger than yourself 
walking along the roads to school in that 
splendid estate could jump up on the ditch 
and make good speeches. 

“ My cousin’s minute books — he was 
secretary of everything — would stock a 
book-shop, and were noted for beautiful 
expressions. He was the author of ten 
styles of resolution construction. An 
enemy christened him Resolving Kavanagh. 
Every time he resolved to stand where he 
always stood he revolved. Everybody put 
up at his house. He was seen in more 
torchlight processions than Bryan O’Lynn. 
A room in his house was decorated in a 
beautiful scheme of illuminated addresses 
with border designs from the Book of Kells. 
The homes of the people were full of the 
stumps of burned-down candles, the 


THE SHOEMAKER 


99 


remains of great illuminations for my cousin 
whenever he came out of prison. 1 tell you 
no lie when I say that that clumsy cousin 
of mine became clever and polished, all 
through pure practice. He had the best of 
tutors. The skin of a landlord in the 
London garret, his agents, their under- 
strappers, removable magistrates, judges. 
Crown solicitors, county inspectors of 
police, sergeants, constables, secret service 
men, — all drove him from fame to fame 
until in the end they chased him out the 
only gap that was left open to the like of 
him — the English Parliament. Think of 
the streak of that man’s career ! And there 
was I, a man of capacity and brains, born 
with the golden spoon of talent in my 
mouth, dead to the world in Gobstown ! 1 

was rotting like a turnip under the best and 
the most accursed of landlords. In the end 
I could not stand it — no man of spirit could. 

“ One day I took down my ashplant, 
spat on my fist, and set out for my cousin’s 
place. He gave me no welcome. I in- 
formed him as to how the land lay in Gobs- 
town. I said we must be allowed to make 
a name for ourselves as the producers of a 
shining example of a landlord. My cousin 


100 


WAYSIDERS 


let his head lie over a little to one side and 
then said, 4 In this country shining 
i examples ought only be used with the 
greatest moderation.’ He looked out 
through the window and after some time 
said, * That Gobstown landlord is the most 
dangerous lunatic in all Ireland.’ * How is 
that?* said I. 4 Because,’ said my famous 
cousin, 4 he has a perfect heart.’ He put 
his head over to the other side, looked at 
me and said, 4 If Gobstown does not do 
something he may be the means of de- 
stroying us all.’ 4 How?* said I. 4 He may 
become contagious,’ said my cousin. 4 Only 
think of his example being followed and 
Ireland turned into one vast tract of Gobs- 
towns ! Would not any fate at all be better 
than that?’ I who knew said, 4 God knows 
it would.’ 

44 My cousin sighed heavily. He turned 
from me, leaving me standing there in the 
kitchen, and I saw him moving with a 
ladder to the loft overhead. This he 
mounted and disappeared in the black 
rafters. I could hear him fumbling some- 
where under the thatch. Presently down 
he came the ladder, a gun in one hand, 
and a fistful of cartridges in the other. He 


THE SHOEMAKER 


101 


spoke no word, and I spoke no word. He 
came to me and put the gun in my hand 
and the handful of cartridges in my pocket. 
He walked to the fire and stood there with 
his back turned. I stood where I was, a 
Gobstown mohawk, with the gun in my 
hand. At last I said, ‘What is this for?* 
and grounded the gun a little on the floor. 
My cousin did not answer at once. At last 
he said without moving, ‘ It’s for stirring 
your tea, what else?’ I looked at him and 
he remained as he was and, the sweat 
breaking out on the back of my neck, I left 
the house and made across the fields for 
home, the cartridges rattling in my pocket 
every ditch I leapt, the feel of the gun in 
my hand becoming more familiar and more 
friendly. 

“ At last I came to the summit of a little 
green hill overlooking Gobstown, and there 
I sat me down. The sight of Gobstown 
rose the gorge in me. Nothing came out of 
it but weak puffs of turf smoke from the 
chimneys — little pallid thin streaks that 
wobbled in the wind. There, says I, is the 
height of Gobstown. And no sound came 
up out of it except the cackle of geese, 
and then the bawl of an old ass in the bog. 


102 


WAYS1DERS 


There, says I, is tl^e depth of Gobstown. 
And rising up from the green hill I made 
up my mind to save Ireland from Gobs- 
town even if I lost my own soul. I would 
put a bullet in the perfect heart of our good 
landlord. 

“ That night I lay behind a certain ditch. 
The moon shone on the nape of my neck. 
The good landlord passed me by on the 
road, he and his good wife, chattering and 
happy as a pair of lovers. I groped for the 
gun. The queerest feeling came over me. 
I did not even raise it. I had no nerve. 1 
quaked behind the ditch. His footsteps 
and her footsteps were like cracks of this 
hammer on my head. I knew, then, in that 
minute, that I was no good, and that Gobs- 
town was for ever lost. . . What hap- 

pened me? Who can say that for certain? 
Many a time have 1 wondered what came 
over me in that hour. I can only guess. 

. . . Nobody belonging to me had ever 

been rack-rented. I had never seen any of 
my own people evicted. No great judge 
of assize had ever looked down on me from 
his bench to the dock and addressed to me 
stern words. I had never heard the clang 
behind me of a prison door. No royal hand 


THE SHOEMAKER 


103 


of an Irish constabularyman had ever 
brought a baton down on my head. No 
carbine had ever butted the soft places of 
my body. I had no scars that might redden 
with memories. The memories I had and 
that might give me courage were not 
memories of landlords. There was nothing 
of anger in my heart for the Gobstown land- 
lord, and he went by. I dragged my legs 
out of the ditch and drowned my cousin’s 
gun in a boghole. After it I dropped in the 
handful of cartridges. They made a little 
gurgle in the dark water like blood in a 
shot man’s throat. And that same night 1 
went home, put a few things in a red hand- 
kerchief, and stole out of Gobstown like a 
thief. I walked along the roads until I 
came to this town, learned my trade, 
became a respectable shoemaker, and — tell 
your mother I never use anything only the 
best leather. There are your boots, Padna, 
tips and all .... half-a-crown. 
Thanks, and well wear!” 


THE RECTOR 

HE Rector came round the gable 
of the church. He walked 
down the sanded path that 
curved to the road. Half-way 
down he paused, meditated, 
then turning gazed at the building. It was 
square and solid, bulky against the back- 
ground of the hills. The Rector hitched up 
his cuffs as he gazed at the structure. 
Critical puckers gathered in little lines 
across the preserved, peach-like cheeks. 
He put his small, nicely-shaped head to 
one side. There was a proprietorial, con- 
cerned air in his attitude. One knew that 
he was thinking of the repairs to the church, 
anxious about the gutters, the downpipe, 
the missing slates on the roof, the painting 
of the doors and windows. He struck an 
attitude as he pondered the problem of the 
cracks on the pebble-dashed walls. His 
umbrella grounded on the sand with 
decision. He leaned out a little on it with 
deliberation, his lips unconsciously shap- 
ing the words of the ultimatum he should 



THE RECTOR 


105 


deliver to the Select Vestry. His figure 
was slight, he looked old-world, almost 
funereal, something that had become 
detached, that was an outpost, half-for- 
gotten, lonely; a man who had sunk into a 
parish where there was nothing to do. He 
mumbled a little to himself as he came 
down to the gate in the high wall that 
enclosed the church grounds. 

A group of peasants was coming along 
the yellow, lonely road, talking and laugh- 
ing. The bare-footed women stepped with 
great active strides, bearing themselves 
with energy. They carried heavy baskets 
from the market town, but were not 
conscious of their weight. The carded- 
wool petticoats, dyed a robust red, brought 
a patch of vividness to the landscape. The 
white “ bauneens ” and soft black hats of 
the men afforded a contrast. The Rector’s 
eyes gazed upon the group with a schooled 
detachment. It was the look of a man who 
stood outside of their lives, who did not 
expect to be recognised, and who did not 
feel called upon to seem conscious of these 
peasant folk. The eyes of the peasants 
were unmoved, uninterested, as they were 
lifted to the dark figure that stood at the 


m 


WAYSIDERS 


rusty iron gate leading into the enclosed 
church grounds. He gave them no 
salutation. Their conversation voluble, 
noisy, dropped for a moment, half through 
embarrassment, half through a feeling that 
something alive stood by the wayside. A 
vagueness in expression on both sides was 
the outward signal that two conservative 
forces had met for a moment and refused 
to compromise. 

One young girl, whose figure and move- 
ments would have kindled the eye of an 
artist, looked up and appeared as if she 
would smile. The Rector was conscious 
of her vivid face, framed in a fringe of 
black hair, of a mischievousness in her 
beauty, some careless abandon in the swing 
of her limbs. But something in the level 
dark brows of the Rector, something that 
was dour, forbade her smile. It died in a 
little flush of confusion. The peasants 
passed and the Rector gave them time to 
make some headway before he resumed his 
walk to the Rectory. 

He looked up at the range of hills, great 
in their extent, mighty in their rhythm, 
beautiful in the play of light and mist upon 
them. But to the mind of the Rector they 


THE RECTOR 


Rtf 


expressed something foreign, they were 
part of a place that was condemned and 
lost. He began to think of the young girl 
who, in her innocence, had half-smiled at 
him. Why did she not smile? Was she 
afraid? Of what was she afraid? What 
evil thing had come between her and that 
impulse of youth ? Some consciousness — of 
what? The Rector sighed. He had, he 
was afraid, knowledge of what it was. 
And that knowledge set his thoughts racing 
over their accustomed course. He ran over 
the long tradition of his grievances — 
grievances that had submerged him in a 
life that had not even a place in this way- 
side countryside. His mind worked its 
way down through all the stages of com- 
plaint until it arrived at the Ne Temere 
decree. The lips of the Rector no longer 
formed half-spoken words ; they became 
two straight, tight little thin lines across the 
teeth. They would remain that way all 
the afternoon, held in position while he 
read the letters in the Irish Times. He 
would give himself up to thoughts of 
politics, of the deeds of wicked men, of the 
transactions that go on within and without 
governments, doping his mind with the 


108 WAYS1DERS 

drug of class opiates until it was time to go 
to bed. 

Meantime he had to pass a man who was 
breaking stones in a ditch by the roadside. 
The hard cracks of the hammer were re- 
sounding on the still air. The man looked 
up from his work as the Rector came along ; 
the grey face of the stone-breaker had a 
melancholy familiarity for him. The 
Rector had an impulse — it was seldom he 
had one. He stood in the centre of the 
road. The Ne Temere decree went from 
his mind. 

“ Good-day, my man,” he said, feeling 
that he had made another concession, and 
that it would be futile as all the others. 

44 Good-day, sir,” the stone-breaker 
made answer, hitching himself upon the 
sack he had put under his haunches, like 
one very ready for a conversation. 

There was a pause. The Rector did not 
know very well how to continue. He 
should, he knew, speak with some sense of 
colloquialism if he was to get on with this 
stonebreaker, a person for whom he had a 
certain ^removed sympathy. The manner 
of these people’s speech was really a part 
of the grievances of the Rector. Their 


THE RECTOR 


109 


conversation, he often secretly assured him- 
self, was peppered with Romish pro* 
paganda. But the Rector made another 
concession. 

“ It’s a fine day, thank God,” he said. 
He spoke like one who was delivering a 
message in an unfamiliar language. 
” Thank God ” was local, and might lend 
itself to an interpretation that could not be 
approved. But the Rector imported some- 
thing into the words that was a protection, 
something that was of the pulpit, that held 
a solemnity in its pessimism. 

” A fine day, indeed, glory be to God !” 
the stonebreaker made answer. There was 
a freshness in his expression, a cheerful- 
ness in the prayer, that made of it an 
optimism. 

The Rector was so conscious of the con- 
trast that it gave him pause again. The 
peach-like colourings on the . cheeks 
brightened, for a suspicion occurred to him. 
Could the fellow have meant anything ? 
Had he deliberately set up an optimistic 
Deity in opposition to the pessimistic Deity 
of the Rector? The Rector hitched up the 
white cuffs under his dark sleeves, swung 
his umbrella, and resumed his way, his 


110 WAYSIDERS 

lips puckered, a little feverish agitation 
seizing him. 

“ A strange, down-hearted kind of a 
man,” the stonebreaker said to himself, as 
he reached out for a lump of lime-stone 
and raised his hammer. A redbreast, 
perched on an old thorn bush, looking out 
on the scene with curious eyes, stretched 
his wing and his leg, as much as to say, 
” Ah, well,” sharpened his beak on a twig, 
and dropped into the ditch to pick up such 
gifts as the good earth yielded. 

The Rector walked along the road 
pensive, but steadfast, his eyes upon the 
alien hills, his mind travelling over ridges 
of problems that never afforded the gleam 
of solution. He heard a shout of a laugh. 
Above the local accents that held a cadence 
of the Gaelic speech he heard the sharp 
clipping Northern accent of his own 
gardener and general factotum. He had 
brought the man with him when he first 
came to Connacht, half as a mild form of 
colonisation, half through a suspicion of 
local honesty. He now saw the man’s 
shaggy head over the Rectory garden wall, 
and outside it were the peasants. 

How was it that the gardener got on with 


THE RECTOR 111 

the local people? How was it that they 
stood on the road to speak with him, shout- 
ing their extravagant laughter at his keen, 
dry Northern humour? 

When he first came the gardener had 
been more grimly hostile to the place than 
the Rector himself. There had been an 
ugly row on the road, and blows had been 
struck. But that was some years ago. The 
gardener now appeared very much merged 
in the life of the place; the gathering out- 
side the Rectory garden was friendly, 
almost a family party. How was it to be 
accounted for? Once or twice the Rector 
found himself suspecting that at the bottom 
of the phenomenon there might be all 
unconscious among these people a spirit of 
common country, of a common democracy, 
a common humanity, that forced itself to 
the surface in course of time. The Rector 
stood, his lips working, his nicely-shaped 
little head quivering with a sudden 
agitation. For he found himself thinking 
along unusual lines, and for that very 
reason dangerous lines — frightfully danger- 
ous lines, he told himself, as an ugly 
enlightenment broke across his mind, 
warming it up for a few moments and no 
more. As he turned in the gate at the 


112 


WAYSIDERS 


Rectory it was a relief to him — for his own 
thoughts were frightening him — to see the 
peasants moving away and the head of the 
gardener disappear behind the wall. He 
walked up the path to the Rectory, the 
lawn dotted over with sombre yew trees all 
clipped into the shape of torpedoes, all 
trained directly upon the forts of Heaven ! 
The house was large and comfortable, the 
walls a faded yellow. Like the church, it 
was thrown up against the background of 
the hills. It had all the sombre exclusiveness 
that made appeal to the Rector. The sight 
of it comforted him at the moment, and his 
mental agitation died down. He became 
normal enough to resume his accustomed 
outlook, and before he had reached the end 
of the path his mind had become obsessed 
again by the thought of the Ne Temere 
decree. Something should, he felt con- 
vinced, be done, and done at once. 

He ground, his umbrella on the step in 
front of the Rectory door and pondered. 
At last he came to a conclusion, inspiration 
lighting up his faded eyes. He tossed his 
head upwards. 

“ I must write a letter to the papers,” he 
said. ” Ireland is lost.” 


THE HOME-COMING 

Persons : 

Mrs. Ford 
Donagh Ford 
Hugh Deely 
Agnes Deely 

Scene : A farmhouse in Connacht. 

Hugh : They’ll make short work of the 
high field. It’s half ploughed already. 

Donagh : It was good of the people to 
gather as they did, giving us their labour. 

Hugh : The people had always a wish 
for your family, Donagh. Look at the 
great name your father left behind him in 
Carrabane. It would be a fine sight for him 
if he had lived to stand at this door now, 
looking at the horses bringing the plough 
over the ground. 

Donagh : And if he could move about 
this house, even in his great age. He 
never got accustomed to the smallness of 
the hut down at Cussmona. 

Hugh : When I was a bit of a gosoon I 
remember the people talking about the evic- 


114 


WAYSIDERS 


don of Donagh Ford. It was terrible work 
used to be in Carrabane those times. Your 
Father was the first man to fight, and that 
was why the people thought so well of 
him. 

Donagh : He would never speak of it 
himself, for at home he was a silent, proud 
man. But my mother used to be telling 
me of it many a time. 

Hugh : Your mother and yourself have 
the place back now. And you have Agnes 
to think of. 

Donagh : Agnes is a good thought to me 
surely. Was she telling you we fixed the 
day of the wedding yesterday at your 
uncle’s ? 

Hugh : She was not. A girl like her is 
often shy of speaking about a thing of that 
kind to her brother. I’d only be making 
game of her. (A cheer is heard in the dis- 
tance outside. Hugh goes to look out door.) 

Hugh : Here is the car coming up the 
road with your mother and Agnes. They’re 
giving her a welcome. 

Donagh (looking out of window ) : She’ll 
be very proud of the people, they to have 
such a memory of my father. 

Hugh : I’ll run out and greet her. (In a 


THE HOME-COMING 


115 


sly undertone.) Agnes is coming up. (He 
goes out laughing. Donagh hangs up har- 
ness on some pegs. Agnes Deely, wearing 
a shawl over her head and carrying a basket 
on her arm , comes in.) 

Agnes : Donagh, your mother was greatly 
excited leaving the hut. I think she doesn’t 
rightly understand what is happening. 

Donagh : I was afeard of that. The 
memory slips on her betimes. She thinks 
she’s back in the old days again. 

Agnes ( going to dresser , taking parcels 
jrom the basket.) : My father was saying 
that we should have everything here as 
much like what it used to be as we can. 
That’s why he brought up the bin. When 
they were evicted he took it up to his own 
place because it was too big for the hut. 

Donagh : Do you know, Agnes, when I 
came up here this morning with your 
brother, Hugh, I felt the place strange and 
lonesome. I think an evicted house is never 
the same, even when people go back to 
it. There seemed to be some sorrow hang- 
ing over it. 

Agnes (putting up her shawl) : Now 
Donagh, that’s no way for you to be speak- 
ing. If you were to see how glad all the 


116 WAYSIDERS 

people were ! And you ought to have the 
greatest joy. 

Donagh : Well, then I thought of you, 
Agnes, and that changed everything. I 
went whistling about the place. (Going to 
her.) After coming down from your uncle’s 
yesterday evening I heard the first cry of 
the cuckoo in the wood at Raheen. 

Agnes : That was a good omen, Donagh. 

Donagh : I took it that way, too, for it 
was the first greeting I got after parting from 
yourself. Did you hear it, Agnes? 

Agnes : I did not. I heard only one 
sound the length of the evening. 

Donagh: What sound was that, Agnes? 

Agnes : I heard nothing only the singing 
of one song, a lovely song, all about 
Donagh Ford ! 

Donagh : About me ? 

Agnes : Yes, indeed. It was no bird and 
no voice, but the singing I heard of my own 
heart. 

Donagh : That was a good song to hear, 
Agnes. It is like a thought that would 
often stir in a man s mind and find no 
word to suit it. It is often that I thought 
that way of you and could speak no word. 

Agnes : All the same I think I would 
have an understanding for it, Donagh. 


THE HOME-COMING 


117 


Donagh : Ah, Agnes, that is just it. That 
is what gives me the great comfort in your 
company. We have a great understanding 
of each other surely. 

Hugh (speaking outside) : This is the 
way, Mrs. Ford. They are waiting for you 
within. (He comes in.) Donagh, here is 
your mother. (Mrs. Ford, leaning on a 
sticky comes to the door, standing on the 
threshold jor a little. Hugh and Donagh 
take off their hats reverently .) 

Mrs. Ford : And is that you, Donagh. 
Well, if it is not the fine high house you 
got for Agnes. Eh, pet? 

Agnes (taking shawl from her) : It is your 
own house Donagh has taken you back to. 

Hugh : Did you not hear the people giv- 
ing you a welcome, Mrs. Ford? 

Donagh : Don’t you remember the house, 
mother ? 

Mrs. Ford : I have a memory of many a 
thing, God help me. And I heard the 
people cheering. I thought maybe it was 
some strife was going on in Carrabane. It 
was always a place of one struggle or 
another. (She looks helplessly about house , 
muttering as she hobbles to the bin. She 
raises the lid.) Won’t you take out a 


118 


WAYS1DERS 


measure of oats to the mare, Donagh? And 
they have mislaid the scoop again. I m 
tired telling them not to be leaving it in the 
barn. Where is that Martin Driscoll and 
what way is he doing his business at all? 
(She turns to close the bin.) 

Hugh (to Donagh ) : Who is Martin 
Driscoll ? 

Donagh : A boy who was here long ago. 
I heard a story of him and a flight with a 
girl. He lies in a grave in Australia long 
years. 

Mrs. Ford (moving from bin , her eyes 
catching the dresser) : Who put the dresser 
there? Was it by my orders? That is a 
place where it will come awkward to me. 

Agnes (going to her) : Sit down and rest 
yourself. You are fatigued after making 
the journey. 

Mrs. Ford (as they cross to jire) : Wait 
until I lay eyes on Martin Driscoll and on 
Delia Morrissey of the cross ! I tell you I 
will regulate them. 

Donagh (to Hugh) : Delia Morrissey — 
that is the name of the girl I spoke of. She 
was lost on the voyage, a girl of great 
beauty. 

Agnes (to Mrs . Ford) : Did you take no 


THE HOME-COMING 119 

stock of the people as you came on the 
car? 

Mrs. Ford : In throth I did. It was prime 
to see them there reddening the sod and 
the little rain drops falling from the branches 
of the trees. 

Hugh : They raised a great cheer for you. 

Mrs. Ford : Did you say that it was to me 
they were giving a welcome ? 

Donagh : Indeed it was, mother. 

Mrs. Ford (laughing a little) : Mind that, 
Agnes. They are the lively lads to be tak- 
ing stock of an old woman the like of me 
driving the roads. 

Hugh : The people could not but feel 
some stir to see what they saw this day. I 
declare to you, Donagh, when I saw her 
old stooped dark figure thrown against the 
sky on the car it moved something in me. 

Mrs. Ford : What are you saying about a 
stir in the country, Hugh Deely? 

Hugh : Was it not something to see the 
planter going from this place? Was it not 
something to see you and Donagh coming 
from a miserable place in the bog? 

Mrs. Ford (sharply) : The planter, did you 
say? (Clutching her stick to rise). Blessed 
be God ! Is Curley the planter gone from 


120 WAYSIDERS 

Carrabane ? Don’t make any lie to me, 
Hugh Deely. 

Hugh : Curley is gone. 

Mrs. Ford (rising with difficulty, her 
agitation growing): And his wife? What 
about his trollop of a wife? 

Donagh : The whole brood and tribe of 
them went a month back. 

Agnes : Did not Donagh tell you that you 
were back in your own place again? (Mrs. 
Ford moves about, a consciousness of her 
surroundings breaking upon her. She goes 
to room door , pushing it open.) 

Hugh : It is all coming back to her again. 

Donagh : She was only a little upset in 
her mind. 

Mrs. Ford (coming from room door ) : 
Agnes, and you, Hugh Deely, come here 
until I be telling you a thing of great wonder. 
It was in this house Donagh there was born. 
And it was in that room that we laid out 
his little sister, Mary. I remember the 
March day and the yellow flowers they put 
around her in the bed. She had no strength 
for the rough world. I crossed her little 
white hands on the breast where the life 
died in her like a flame. Donagh, my son, 
it was nearly all going from my mind. 


THE HOME-COMING 


121 


Agnes : This is no day for sad thoughts. 
Think of the great thing it is for you to be 
back here again. 

Mrs. Ford : Ah, that’s the truth, girl. 
Did the world ever hear of such a story as 
an old woman like me to be standing in 
this place and the planter gone from Curra- 
bane ! And if Donagh Ford is gone to his 
rest his son is here to answer for him. 

Donagh : The world knows I can never 
be the man my father was. 

Mrs. Ford (raising her stick with a little 
cry) : Ah-ha, the people saw the great 
strength of Donagh Ford. * They talk of a 
tenant at will,* he*d say, * but who is it that 
can chain the purpose of a man’s mind.’ 
And they all saw it. There was no great 
spirit in the country when Donagh Ford took 
the courage of his own heart and called the 
people together. 

Hugh : This place was a place of great 
strife then. 

Mrs. Ford : God send, Agnes DeeV* that 
you’ll never have the memory of a bitter 
eviction burned into your mind. 

Donagh : That's all over and done now, 
mother. There is a new life before you. 

Mrs. Ford : Well, they had their way and 


122 


WAYSIDERS 


put us across the threshold. But if they did 
it was on this hearth was kindled a blaze 
that swept the townland and wrapped the 
country. It went from one place to another 
and no wave that rose upon the Shannon 
could hold it back. It was a thing that no 
power could check, for it ran in the blood 
and only wasted in the vein of the father to 
leap fresh in the heart of the son. Ah, I 
will go on my knees and kiss the threshold 
of this house for the things it calls to mind. 
(She goes to door , kneeling down and pissing 
the threshold.) 

Hugh : It is a great hold she has on the 
old days and a great spirit. (A low murmur 
oj voices is heard in the distance outside.) 

Donagh : They are turning the ploughs 
into the second field. 

Mrs. Ford : What’s that you say about the 
ploughs ? 

Donagh (going to her) : The boys are 
breaking up the land for us. (He and Hugh 
help her to rise. They are all grouped at 
the door.) 

Agnes : It was they who cheered you on 
the road. 

Mrs. Ford: The sight is failing me. 


THE HOME-COMING 123 

Donagh. I can only make out little dark 
spots against the green of the fields. 

Donagh : Those are the people, mother. 

Mrs. Ford (crossing to jireplace) : The 
people are beginning to gather behind the 
ploughs again. Tell me, Donagh, what 
way is the wind coming? 

Donagh : It is coming up from the South. 

Mrs. Ford (speaking more to herself ) : 
Well, I can ask no more now. The wind is 
from the South and it will bear that cheer 
past where HE is lying in Gurteen-na-Marbh. 
It is a kind wind and it carries good music. 
Take my word for it every sound that goes 
on the wind is not lost to the dead. 

Hugh : You ought to take her out of these 
thoughts. 

Agnes : Leave her with me for a little 
while. (Hugh and Donagh move to door.) 

Mrs. Ford : Where are you going, 
Donagh ? 

Donagh : Down to the people breaking 
the ground. They will be waiting for word 
of your home-coming. 

Mrs. Ford : Ah, sure you ought to have 
the people up here, a mhic. I’d like to see 
all the old neighbours about me and hear 
the music of their voices. 


124 


WAYSIDERS 


Hugh : Very well. I’ll step down and 
bid them up. (He goes.) 

Mrs. Ford : You’ll have the anxiety of the 
farm on your mind from this out, Donagh. 

Donagh : Well, it is not the hut, with the 
hunger of the bog about it, that I will be 
bringing Agnes into now. 

Mrs. Ford : Agnes, come here, love, until 
1 look upon the sweetness of your face. 
(Agnes goes to her , kneeling by her side.) 
You’ll be in this place with Donagh. It is 
a great inheritance you will have in the 
name of Donagh Ford. It is no idle name 
that will be in this house but the name of 
one who knew a great strength. It will be 
a long line of generations that the name of 
the Fords will reach out to, generations 
reaching to the time that Ireland herself will 
rise by the power of her own will. 

Agnes (rising) : You will only sadden 
yourself by these thoughts. Think of what 
there is in store for you. 

Mrs. Ford : I’m an old woman now, 
child. There can be no fresh life before 
me. But I can tell you that I was young 
and full of courage once. I was the woman 
who stood by the side of Donagh Ford, that 
gave him support in the day of trial, that 


THE HOME-COMING 


125 


was always the strong branch in the storm 
and in the calm. Am I saying any word 
only what is a true word, Donagh? 

Donagh : The truth of that is well known 
to the people (He goes to door.) 

Mrs. Ford : Very well. Gather up all the 
people now, son. Let them come in about 
this place for many of them have a memory 
of it. Let me hear the welcome of their 
voices. They will have good words to say, 
speaking on the greatness of Donagh Ford 
who is dead. 

Donagh : They are coming out from the 
fields with Hugh, mother. I see the young 
fellows falling into line. They are wearing 
their caps and sashes and they have the 
band. I can see them carrying the banner 
to the front of the crowd. Here they are 
marching up the road. (The strains of a 
fife and drum band playing a spirited march 
are heard in the distance. Mrs. Ford rises 
slowly , “ humouring ” the march with her 
stick , her face expressing her delight. The 
band stops.) 

Mrs. Ford : That’s the spirit of Carrabane. 
Let the people now look upon me in this 
place and let them take pride in my son. 

Donagh : I see Stephen Mac Donagh. 


126 


WAYSIDERS 


Mrs. Ford : Let him be the first across 
the threshold, for he went to jail with 
Donagh Ford. Have beside him Murt 
Cooney that lost his sight at the struggle of 
Ballyadams. Let him lift up his poor blind 
face till I see the rapture of it. 

Donagh : Murt Cooney is coming, and 
Francis Kilroy and Brian Mulkearn. 

Mrs. Ford : It was they who put a seal of 
silence on their lips and bore their punish- 
ment to save a friend of the people. Have 
a place beside me for the widow of Con 
Rafferty who hid the smoking revolver the 
day the tyrant fell at the cross of Killbrack. 

Donagh : All the old neighbours are 
coming surely. 

Mrs. Ford (crossing slowly to door , Agnes 
going bejore her ) : Let me look into their 
eyes for the things I will see stirring there. 
I will reach them out the friendship of my 
hands and speak to them the words that lie 
upon my heart. The rafters of this house 
will ring again with the voices that Donagh 
Ford welcomed and that I loved. Aye, the 
very fire on the hearth will leap in memory 
of the hands that tended it. 

Donagh : This will be such a day as will 


THE HOME-COMING 


127 


be made a boast of for ever in Carrabane. 
(Agnes goes out door to meet the people.) 

Mrs. Ford : Let there be music and the 
sound of rejoicing and shouts from the hills. 
Let those who put their feet in anger upon 
us and who are themselves reduced to-day 
look back upon the strength they held and 
the power they lost. 

Donagh : I will bid the music play up. 
(He goes out.) 

Mrs. Ford (standing alone at the door) : 
People of Carrabane, gather about the old 
house of Donagh Ford. Let the fight for 
the land in this place end where it began. 
Let the courage and the strength that 
Donagh Ford knew be in your blood from 
this day out. Let the spirit be good and the 
hand be strong for the work that the heart 
directs. Raise up your voices with my 
voice this day and let us make a great praise 
on the name of Ireland. (She raises her 
sticky straightening her old figure. The 
band strikes up and the people cheer outside 
as the curtain jails.) 


A WAYSIDE BURIAL 

HE parish priest was in a very 
great hurry and yet anxious 
for a talk on his pet subject. 
He wanted to speak about the 
new temperance hall. Would 
1 mind walking a little way with 
him while he did so ? He had a 
great many things to attend to that 
day. . . .We made our way along 

the street together, left the town 
behind us, and presently reached that 
sinister appendage of all Irish country 
towns, the workhouse. The priest turned 
in the wide gate, and the porter, old, 
official, spectacled, came to meet him. 

“Has the funeral gone?” asked the 
priest, a little breathless. 

“ I’ll see, Father.” The porter shuffled 
over the flags, a great door swung open; 
there was a vista of whitewashed walls, a 
chilly, vacant corridor, and beyond it a hall 
where old men were seated on forms at a 
long, white deal table. They were eating — 
a silent, grey, bent, beaten group. Through 
a glass partition we could see the porter in 



A WAYSIDE BURIAL 129 

his office turning over the leaves of a great 
register. 

“ I find,” he said, coming out again, 
speaking as if he were giving evidence at a 
sworn inquiry, ” that the remains of Martin 
Quirke, deceased, were removed at 4.15.” 

” I am more than half an hour late,” said 
the priest, regarding his watch with some 
irritation. 

We hurried out and along the road to the 
country, the priest trailing his umbrella 
behind him, speaking of the temperance 
hall but preoccupied about the funeral he 
had missed, my eyes marking the flight of 
flocks of starlings making westward. 

Less than a mile of ground brought us 
to the spot where the paupers were buried. 
It lay behind a high wall, a narrow strip 
of ground, cut off from a great lord’s 
demesne by a wood. The scent of decay 
was heavy in the place; it felt as if the 
spring and the summer had dragged their 
steps here, to lie down and die with the 
paupers. The uncut grass lay rank and 
grey and long — Nature’s unkempt beard — 
on the earth. The great bare chestnuts and 
oaks threw narrow shadows over the irre- 
gular mounds of earth. Small, rude wooden 


130 


WAYSIDERS 


crosses stood at the heads of some of the 
mounds, lopsided, drunken, weather- 
beaten. No names were inscribed upon 
them. All the bones laid down here were 
anonymous. A robin was singing at the 
edge of the wood ; overhead the rapid wings 
of wild pigeons beat the air. 

A stable bell rang impetuously in the 
distance, dismissing the workmen on the 
lord’s demesne. By a freshly-made grave 
two gravediggers were leaning on their 
spades. They were paupers, too ; men who 
got some privilege for their efforts in this 
dark strip of earth between the wood and 
the wall. One of them yawned. A third 
man stood aloof, a minor official from the 
workhouse; he took a pipe from his mouth 
as the priest approached. 

The three men gave one the feeling that 
they were rather tired of waiting, impatient 
to have their little business through. It 
was a weird spot in the gathering gloom of 
a November evening. The only bright thing 
in the place, the only gay spot, the only 
cheerful patch of colour, almost exulting in 
its grim surroundings, was the heap of 
freshly thrown up soil from the grave. It 
was rich in colour as newly-coined gold. 


A WAYSIDE BURIAL 


131 


Resting upon it was a clean, white, 
unpainted coffin. The only ornament was a 
tin breastplate on the lid and the inscription 
in black letters : 

Martin Quirke, 

Died November 3, 1900. 

R.l.P. 

The white coffin on the pile of golden 
earth was like the altar of some pagan god. 
I stood apart as the priest, vesting himself 
in a black stole, approached the graveside 
and began the recital of the burial service in 
Latin. The gravediggers, whose own bones 
would one day be interred anonymously in 
the same ground, stood on either side of 
him with their spades, two grim acolytes. 
The minor official from the workhouse, the 
symbol of the State, bared a long, narrow 
head, as white and as smooth as the coffin 
on the heap of earth. I stood by a groggy 
wooden cross, the eternal observer. 

The priest spoke in a low monotone, 
holding the book close to his eyes in the 
uncertain light. And as he read I fell to 
wondering who our brother in the white 
coffin might be. Some merry tramp who 
knew the pain and the joy of the road? 


132 


WAYSIDERS 


Some detached soul who had shaken of? 
the burden of life’s conventions, one who 
loved lightly and took punishment casually ? 
One who saw crime as a science, or merely 
a broken reed? Or a soldier who had car- 
ried a knapsack in foreign campaigns? A 
creature of empire who had found himself 
in Africa, or Egypt, or India, or the Crimea, 
and come back again to claim his pile of 
golden earth in the corner of the lord’s 
demesne? If the men had time, perhaps 
they would stick a little wooden cross over 
the spot where his bones were laid 
down. . . . 

The priest’s voice continued the recita- 
tion of the burial service and the robin sang 
at the edge of the dim wood. Down the 
narrow strip of rank burial ground a low 
wind cried, and the light, losing its glow in 
the western sky, threw a grey pall on the 
grass. And under the influence of the 
moment a little memory of people I had 
known and forgotten went across my mind, 
a memory that seemed to stir in the low 
wind, a memory of people who had at the 
last got their white, clean coffin and their 
rest on a pile of golden earth, people who 
had gone like our brother in the deal 


A WAYSIDE BURIAL 133 

Boards. . . . There was the man, the 
scholar, who had taught his school, who 
had an intelligence, who could talk, who, 

perhaps, could have written only . The 

wind sobbed down the narrow strip of 
ground. . . . He had made his battle, 
indeed, a long-drawn-out battle, for he had 
only given way step by step, gradually but 
inexorably yielding ground to the thing that 
was hunting him out of civilised life. He 
had gone from his school, his home, his 
friends, fleeing from one miserable refuge 
to another in the miserable country town. 
Eventually he had passed in through the 
gates of the workhouse. It was all very 
vivid now — his attempts to get back to the 
life he had known, like a man struggling in 
the quicksands. There were the little spurts 
back to the town, the well-shaped head, the 
face which still held some remembrance of 
its distinction and its manhood erect over 
the quaking, broken frame; that splendid 
head like a noble piece of sculpture on the 
summit of a crumbling ruin. Forth he 
would come, the flicker of resistance, a 
pallid battle-light in the eyes, a vessel that 
had been all but wrecked once more stand- 
ing up the harbour to meet the winds that 


134 WAYS1DERS 

had driven it from the seas — and after a 
little battle once more taking in the sheets 
and crawling back to the anchorage of the 
dark workhouse, there to suffer in the old 
way, in secret to curse, to pray, to despair, 
to hope, to contrive some little repairs to 
the broken physique in order that there 
might be yet another journey into waters 
that were getting more and more shadowy. 
And the day came when the only journey 
that could be made was a shuffle to the 
gate, the haunted eyes staring into a world 
which was a nightmare of regrets. How 
terrible was the pathos of that life, that 
struggle, that tragedy, how poignant its 
memory while the robin sang at the edge 
of the dim wood ! And there was 

that red-haired, defiant young man with the 
build of an athlete, the eyes of an animal. 
How bravely he could sing up the same 
road to the dark house ! It was to him as 
the burrow is to the rabbit. He would 
come out to nibble at the regular and lawful 
intervals, and having nibbled return to sleep 
and shout and fight for his “ rights ** in the 
dark house. And once, on a spring day, 
he had come out with a companion, a pale 
woman in a thin shawl and a drab skirt, and 


A WAYSIDE BURIAL 135 

they had taken to the roads together, him- 
self swinging his ashplant, his stride and 
manner carrying the illusion of purpose, his 
eyes on everything and his mind nowhere; 
herself trotting over the broken stones in her 
canvas shoes beside him, a pale shadow 
under the fire of his red head. They had 
gone away into a road whose milestones 
were dark houses, himself singing the song 
of his own life, a song of mumbled words, 
without air or music; herself silent, clutch- 
ing her thin shawl over her breast, her feet 
pattering over the little stones of the road. 
. . . The wind whistled down over the 

graves, by the wooden crosses. . . . 

There was that little woman who at the 
close of the day, when the light was chari- 
table in its obscurity, opened her door and 
came down from the threshold of her house, 
painfully as if she were descending from a 
great height. Nobody was about. All was 
quietness in the quiet street. And she drew 
the door to, put the key in the lock, her 
hand trembled, the lock clicked ! The deed 
was done ! Who but herself could know 
that the click of the key in the lock^yas the 
end, the close, the dreadful culmination of 
the best part of a whole century of struggle, 


136 


WAYSIDERS 


of life ? Behind that door she had swept up 
a bundle of memories that were now all an 
agony because the key had clicked in the 
lock. Behind the door was the story of 
her life and the lives of her children and her 
children’s children. Where was the use, 
she might have asked, of blaming any of 
them now? What was it that they had 
all gone, all scattered, leaving her broken 
there at the last? Had not the key clicked 
in the lock? In that click was the end of 
it all; in the empty house were the ghosts 
of her girlhood, her womanhood, her 
motherhood, her old age, her struggles, her 
successes, her skill in running her little 
shop, her courage in riding one family 
squall after another ! The key had clicked 
in the lock. She moved down the quiet 
street, sensitive lest the eye of the neigh- 
bours should see her, a tottering, broken 
thing going by the vague walls, keeping to 
the back streets, setting out for the dark 
house beyond the town. She had said to 
them, “ I will be no trouble to you.” And, 
indeed, she was not. They had little more 
to do for her than join her hands over her 
breast. . . . The wind was plaintive in 

the gaunt trees of the dark wood. . . . 

Which of us could say he would never turn 


A WAYSIDE BURIAL 


137 


a key in the lock of an empty house ? How 
many casual little twists of the wrist of 
Fate stand between the best of us and the 
step down from the threshold of a broken 
home ? What rags of memories have any of 
us to bundle behind the door of the empty 
house when the hour comes for us to click 
the key in the lock? . . . The wind 

cried down the narrow strip of ground 
where the smell of decay was in the grass. 

There was a movement beside the white 
coffin, the men were lifting it off the golden 
pile of earth and lowering it into the dark 
pit. The men’s feet slipped and shuffled for 
a foothold in the yielding clay. At last a 
low, dull thud sounded up from the mouth 
of the pit. Our brother in the white coffin 
had at last found a lasting tenure in the 
soil. 

The official from the dark house moved 
over to me. He spoke in whispers, holding 
the hat an official inch of respect for the 
dead above the narrow white shred of his 
skull. 

“ Martin Quirke they are burying,” he 
said. 

“ Who was he?” 

“ Didn’t you ever hear tell of Martin 
Quirke?” 


138 


WAYSIDERS 


“ No, never.** 

“ A big man he was one time, with his 
acres around him and his splendid place. 
Very proud people they were — he and his 
brother — and very hot, too. The Quirkes 
of Ballinadee.” 

“ And now *’ 

I did not finish the sentence. The priest 
was spraying the coffin in the grave with 
the golden earth. 

“Ashes to ashes and dust to dust.’* It 
fell briskly on the shallow deal timber. 

“ ’Twas the land agitation, the fight for 
the land, that brought Martin Quirke 
down,** said the official as the earth 
sprayed the pauper’s coffin. “ He was one 
of the first to go out under the Plan of Cam- 
paign — the time of the evictions. They 
never got back their place. When the 
settlement came the Quirkes were broken. 
Martin lost his spirit and his heart. Drink 
it was that got him in the end, and 
now 

“ Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine : 
et lux perpetua luceat eis,** the priest’s 
voice said. 

“All the same,** said the official, “it 
was men like Martin Quirke who broke the 


A WAYSIDE BURIAL 139 

back of landlordism. He was strong and he 
was weak. God rest him!” 

I walked away over the uneven ground, 
the memory of the land agitation, its bitter- 
ness and its passion, oppressing me. Stories 
of things such as this stalked the country 
like ghosts. 

The priest overtook me, and we turned 
to leave. Down the narrow strip of the 
lord’s demesne were the little pauper 
mounds, like narrow boxes wrapped in the 
long grey grass. Their pathos was almost 
vibrant in the dim November light. And 
away beyond them were a series of great 
heaps, looking like broad billows out to sea. 
The priest stood for a moment. 

“You see the great mounds at the end?” 
he asked. “ They are the Famine Pits.” 

“The Famine Pits?” 

“Yes; the place where the people were 
buried in heaps and hundreds, in thou- 
sands, during the Famine of ’46 and ’47. 
They died like flies by the roadside. You 
see such places in almost every part of 
Ireland. I hope the people will never again 
die like that — die gnawing the gravel on 
the roadside.” 

The rusty iron gate in the demesne wall 
swung open and we passed out. 


THE GRAY LAKE 

can see every colour in the water 
except gray," said the lady 
who was something or a 
sceptic. 

"That," said the humorist, 
tilting back his straw hat, " is the very 
reason they call it the Gray Lake. The 
world bristles with misnomers." 

" Which explains," said the lady sceptic, 
" why they call Eamonn a seannachie 

"Hi!" called out the humorist. "Do 
you hear that, Eamonn?" 

"Cad ta ortY ’ asked Eamonn. He had 
been leaning out over the prow of the boat, 
looking vaguely into the water, and now 
turned round. Eamonn was always asking 
people, " Cad ta ortY' and before they had 
time to answer he was saying, or thinking, 
something else. 

" Why do they call this the Gray Lake?" 
asked the lady sceptic. "It never looked 
really gray, did it?" 

" Of course it did," said Eamonn. " The 
first man who ever saw it beheld it in the 
gray light of dawn, and so he called it 



THE GRAY LAKE 141 

Baile Loch Riabhach , the Town of the Gray 
Lough.** 

“ When might that be?” asked the lady 
sceptic drily. 

The morning after the town was 
drowned,” said Eamonn. 

“What town?” 

“ The town we are now rowing over.** 
Good heavens ! Is there a town beneath 
us?” 

“5eac?h,” said Eamonn. “Just now I 
was trying if I could see anything of the 
ruins at the bottom of the lake.** 

“ And you did, of course.*’ 

“ 1 think so.** 

“ What did you see?” 

“ Confusion and the vague, glimmering 
gable of a house or two. Then the oars 
splashed and the water became dense.** 

“ But tell us how the town came to be 
at the bottom of the lake,’* said the man 
who rowed, shipping his oars. The boat 
rocked in the quick wash of the waves. The 
water was warming in vivid colours under 
the glow of the sunset. Eamonn leaned 
back in his seat at the prow of the boat. 
His eyes wandered away over the water to 
the slope of meadows, the rise of hills. 


142 


WAYSIDERS 


“ Anois, Eamonn ,” said the lady 

sceptic, still a little drily. “The story!” 

Long and long ago, said Eamonn, there 
was a sleepy old town lying snug in the dip 
of a valley. It was famous for seven of the 
purest springs of water which ever sparkled 
in the earth. They called it the Seven 
Sisters. Round the springs they built an 
immense and costly well. Over the well 
was a great leaden lid of extraordinary 
weight, and by a certain mechanical device 
this lid was closed on the well every even- 
ing at sundown. The springs became 
abnormally active between sundown and 
sunrise, so that there was always a danger 
that they might flood the valley and destroy 
the people. As security against this the 
citizens had built the great well with its 
monster lid, and each evening the lid was 
locked over the well by means of a secret 
lock and a secret key. 

The most famous person in the town of 
the Seven Sisters was the Keeper of the 
Key. He was a man of dignified bearing, 
important airs, wearing white silk knee- 
breeches, a green swallow-tail coat, and a 
cocked hat. On the sleeve of his coat was 


THE GRAY LAKE 


143 


embroidered in gold the image of a key and 
seven sprays of water. He had great privi- 
leges and authority, and could condemn or 
reprieve any sort of criminal except, of 
course, a sheep stealer. He lived in a 
mansion beside the town, and this mansion 
was almost as famous as the seven famous 
springs. People travelled from far places 
to see it. A flight of green marble steps led 
to a broad door of oak. On the broad 
oaken door he had fashioned one of the 
most remarkable knockers and the most 
beautiful door knob that were known to 
Europe. Both were of beaten gold. The 
knocker was wrought in the shape of a key. 
The door knob was a group of seven water 
nymphs. A sensation was created which 
agitated ^11 Ireland when this work of art 
was completed by five of the foremost gold- 
smiths in the land. The Keeper of the Key 
of the Seven Sisters issued a Proclamation 
declaring that there was a flaw in the round- 
ing of one of the ankles of the group of seven 
water nymphs. He had the five goldsmiths 
suddenly arrested and put on their trial. 
“ The Gael,” said the Keeper of the Key, 
“ must be pure-blooded in his art. I am of 
the Clann Gael. I shall not allow any half- 


144 


WAYS1DERS 


artist to come to my door, there work under 
false pretence and go unpunished.” The 
goldsmiths protested that their work was 
the work of artists and flawless as the 
design. Not another word would they be 
allowed to speak. Bards and artists, 
scholars and men skilled in controversy, 
flocked from all parts to see the door knob. 
A terrible controversy ensued. Sides were 
taken, some for, others against, the ankle 
of the water nymph. They came to be 
known as the Ankleites and the anti- 
Ankleites. And in that tremendous con- 
troversy the Keeper of the Key proved the 
masterly manner of man he was. He had 
the five goldsmiths convicted for failure as 
supreme artists, and they were sentenced to 
banishment from the country. On their 
way from the shore to the ship that was to 
bear (them away their curragh sprang a 
sudden leak, and they were all drowned. 
That was the melancholy end of the five 
chief goldsmiths of Eirinn. 

Every morning at daybreak trumpets 
were blown outside the mansion of the 
Keeper of the Key. The gates of a court- 
yard swung open and out marched an 
armed guard, men in saffron kilts, bearing 


THE GRAY LAKE 


145 


spears and swords. They formed up before 
the flight of marble steps. A second fan- 
fare of the trumpets, and back swung the 
great oaken door, disclosing the Keeper of 
the Key in his bright silks and cocked hat. 
Out he would come on the doorstep, no 
attendants by him, and pulling to the great 
door by the famous knob he would descend 
the marble steps, the guard would take up 
position, and, thus escorted, he would cross 
the drawbridge of the moat and enter the 
town of the Seven Sisters, marching through 
the streets to the great well. People would 
have gathered there even at that early hour, 
women bearing vessels to secure their 
supply of the water, which, it was said, had 
an especial virtue when taken at the break 
of day. No mortal was allowed nearer than 
fifty yards to the well while the Keeper pro- 
ceeded to unlock the lid. His guard would 
stand about, and with a haughty air he 
would approach the well solus. The people 
would see him make some movements, and 
back would slide the enormous lid. A blow 
on the trumpets proclaimed that the well 
was open, and the people would approach 
it, laughing and chattering, and the Keeper 
of the Key would march back to his man- 


146 


WAYSIDERS 


sion in the same military order, ascend the 
steps, push open the great door, and the 
routine of daily life would ensue. For the 
closing of the well at sundown a similar 
ceremony was observed. The only 
additional incident was the marching of a 
crier through the streets, beating great 
wooden clappers, and standing at each 
street corner calling out in a loud voice : 
” Hear ye people that the lock is on the 
Seven Sisters. All’s well!” 

In those days there was a saying among 
the people which was in common usage all 
over Ireland. When a man became pos- 
sessed of any article or property to which 
he had a doubtful title his neighbours said, 
with a significant wag of the head, ” He 
got it where the Keeper gets the Key.” 
This saying arose out of a mysterious thing 
in the life of the Keeper of the Key. 
Nobody ever saw the secret key. It was 
not in his hands when he came forth from 
the mansion morning and evening to fulfil 
his great office. He did not carry it in his 
pockets, for the simple reason that he had 
had no pockets. He kept no safe nor secret 
panel nor any private drawer in his mansion 
that the most observant among his retainers 


THE GRAY LAKE 


147 


could espy. Yet that there was a secret 
key, and that it was inserted in a lock, any- 
body could see for himself, even at a 
distance of fifty yards, twice a day at the 
well. It was as if at that moment the key 
came into his hand out of the air and again 
vanished into air when the proper business 
was over. Indeed, there were people of 
even those remote and enlightened days 
who attributed some wizardy to the Keeper 
of the Key. It added to the awe in which 
he was held and to the sense of security 
which the proceedings of his whole life 
inspired in his fellow-citizens. Neverthe- 
less had the Keeper of the Key his enemies. 
A man of distinction and power can no 
more tread the paths of his ambitions 
without stirring up rivalries and hostilities 
than can the winds howl across the earth 
and leave the dust on the roads undisturbed. 
The man who assumes power will always, 
sooner or later, have his power to hold put 
to the test. So it was with the Keeper of 
the Key. There were people who nursed 
the ambition of laying hands on the secret 
key. That secured, they would be lords of 
the town of the Seven Sisters. The reign 
of the great Keeper would be over. His 


148 


WAYSIDERS 


instinct told him that these dangers were 
always about. He was on the alert. He 
had discovered treachery even within the 
moat of his own keep. His servants and 
guards had been tampered with. But all 
the attempts upon his key and his power 
had been in vain. He kept to the grand 
unbroken simplicity of his masterly routine. 
He had crushed his enemies whenever they 
had arisen. “ One who has survived the 
passions of Ireland’s poets,” he would say 
— for the poets had all been Ankleites — “ is 
not likely to bow the knee before snivelling 
little thieves.” A deputation which had 
come to him proposing that the well should 
be managed by a constitutional committee 
of the citizens was flogged by the guards 
across the drawbridge. The leader of this 
deputation was a deformed tailor, who soon 
after planned an audacious attack on the 
mansion of the Keeper of the Key. The 
Keeper, his guards, servants and retainers 
were all one night secretly drugged and for 
several hours of the night lay unconscious 
in the mansion. Into it swarmed the little 
tailor and his constitutional committee ; they 
pulled the whole interior to pieces in search 
of the key. The very pillows under the 


THE GRAY LAKE 


149 


head of the Keeper had been stabbed and 
ransacked. It was nearing daybreak when 
the Keeper awoke, groggy from the effects 
of the narcotic. The guard was roused. 
The whole place was in confusion. The 
robbers had fled, leaving the great golden 
knocker on the door hanging from its 
position; they were removing it when sur- 
prised. The nymphs were untouched. The 
voice of the Keeper of the Key was 
deliberate, authoritative, commanding, 
amid the confusion. The legs of the guards 
quaked beneath them, their heads swam, 
and they said to each other, “ Now surely is 
the key gone ! * * But their master hurried* 
them to their morning duty, and they 
escorted him to the well a little beyond 
daybreak, and, lo, at the psychological 
moment, there was the key and back rolled 
the lid from the precious well. “ Surely,” 
they said, ” this man is blessed, for the key 
comes to him as a gift from Heaven. The 
robbers of the earth are powerless against 
him.” When the citizens of the Seven 
Sisters heard of what had taken place in 
the evil hours of the night they poured 
across the drawbridge from the town and 
acclaimed the Keeper of the Key before his 


150 


WAYSIDERS 


mansion. He came out on the watch tower, 
his daughter by his side, and with dignified 
mien acknowledged the acclamations of the 
citizens. And before he put the lid on the 
well that night the deformed tailor and his 
pards were all dragged through the streets 
of the Seven Sisters and cast into prison. 

Never was the popularity of the Keeper at 
so high a level as after this episode. They 
would have declared him the most perfect 
as the most powerful of men were it not 
for one little spot on the bright sun of his 
fame. They did not like his domestic 
habits. The daughter who stood by his side 
on the watch tower was a young girl of 
charm, a fair, frail maiden, a slender lily 
under the towering shadow of her dark 
father. The citizens did not, perhaps, 
understand his instincts of paternity; and, 
indeed, if they understood them they would 
not have given them the sanction of their 
approval. The people only saw that the 
young girl, his only child, was condemned 
to what they called a life of virtual 
imprisonment in the mansion. She was a 
warm-blooded young creature, and like 
all warm-blooded creatures, inclined tc 
gaiety of spirits, to impulsive friendships 


THE GRAY LAKE 


151 


to a joyous and engaging frankness. These 
traits, the people saw, the father dis- 
approved of and checked, and the young 
girl was regarded with great pity. “ Ah,” 
they would say, “ he is a wonderful Keeper 
of the Key, but, alas, how harsh a father !” 
He would not allow the girl any individual 
freedom ; she was under eternal escort when 
abroad ; she was denied the society of those 
of her years; she was a flower whose frag- 
rance it was not the privilege of the people 
to enjoy. It may be that the people, in 
murmuring against all this, did not make 
sufficient allowance for the circumstances 
of the life of the Keeper of the Key. He 
was alone, he stood apart from all men. 
His only passion in life had been the strict 
guardianship of a trust. In these circum- 
stances his affections for his only child were 
direct and crude and, too, maybe a little 
unconsciously harsh. His love for his child 
was the love of the oyster for its pearl. The 
people saw nothing but the rough, tight 
shells which closed about the treasure in 
the mansion of the Keeper of the Key. 
More than one considerable wooer had 
approached that mansion, laying claim to 
the pearl which it held. All were met with 


152 


WAYSIDERS 


the same terrible dark scowl and sent about 
their business. “You, sir,” the Keeper of 
the Key would say, “come to my door, 
knock upon my knocker, lay hands upon my 
door knob — my golden door knob — and ask 
for my daughter’s hand ! Sir, your audacity 
is your only excuse. Let it also be your 
defence against my wrath. Now, sir, a 
very good day!” And when the citizens 
heard that yet another gallant wooer had 
come and been dismissed they would say, 
“ The poor child, the poor child, what a 
pity!” 

The truth was that the daughter of the 
Keeper of the Key was not in the least 
unhappy. She had a tremendous opinion 
of her father ; she lavished upon him all the 
warm affection of her young ardour. She 
reigned like a young queen within the con- 
fines of her home. She was about the 
gardens and the grounds all day, as joyous 
as a bird. Once or twice her governess 
gave her some inkling as to the suitors who 
came to the mansion requesting her hand, 
for that is an affair that cannot be kept from 
the most jealously-guarded damsel. The 
governess had a sense of humour and enter- 
tained the girl with accounts of the manner 


THE GRAY LAKE 


153 


of lovers who, as she put it, washed up the 
marble steps of the mansion to the oak 
door, like waves on a shore, and were sent 
back again into the ocean of rejections. 
The young girl was much amused and 
secretly flattered at these events. “ Ah,” 
she would say, in a little burst of rapture, 
“ how splendid is my father!” The pearl 
rejoices in the power of the oyster to shut 
it away from the world. 

Now (continued Eamonn), on the hilly 
slopes of the country called Sunnach there 
was a shepherd boy, and people who saw 
that he was a rare boy in looks and 
intelligence were filled with pity for his 
unhappy lot. The bodach for whom he 
herded was a dour, ill-conditioned fellow, 
full of curses and violent threats, but the 
boy was content in the life of the hillsides, 
and troubled very little about the bodach’s 
dour looks. ” Some day,” he would say to 
himself laughingly, ” I will compose terrible 
verses about his black mouth.” One day 
the shepherd boy drove a little flock of the 
bodach’s lively sheep to the fair in the town 
of the Seven Sisters. As he passed the 
mansion of the Keeper of the Key he cried 
out, “How up! how up! how up!” His 


154 


WAYSIDERS 


voice was clear and full, the notes as round 
and sweet as the voice of the cuckoo. The 
daughter of the Keeper of the Key was 
seated by a window painting a little picture 
when she heard the “How up!” of the 
shepherd’s voice. “ What beautiful calls !” 
she exclaimed, and leaned out from the 
window. At the same moment the shep- 
herd boy looked up. He was bare-headed 
and wore his plaids. His head was a shock 
of curly straw-coloured hair, his face eager, 
clear-cut, his eyes golden-brown and bright 
as the eyes of a bird. He smiled and the 
damsel smiled. “ How up ! how up ! how 
up!” he sang out joyously to his flock as 
he moved down to the fair. The damsel 
went back to her little picture and sat there 
for some time staring at her palette and 
mixing the wrong colours. 

That evening the Keeper of the Key, as 
was his custom, escorted his daughter on 
his arm, servants before and behind them, 
through the town of the Seven Sisters, view- 
ing such sights of the fair as were agreeable 
and doing a little shopping. The people, 
seeing the great man coming, made way for 
him on the paths, and bowed and smiled 
to him as he passed. He walked with great 


THE GRAY LAKE 


155 


dignity, and his daughter’s beauty made the 
bystanders say, “ Happy will it be for the 
lucky man ! * * Among those they en- 
countered was the shepherd boy, and he 
gazed upon the damsel with rapture in his 
young eyes. He followed them about the 
town at a respectful distance, and back to 
their mansion. The shepherd boy did not 
return to the hilly country called Sunnach 
that night, nor the next night, nor for many 
a long day and night. He remained in the 
town of the Seven Sisters, running on 
errants, driving carts, doing such odd jobs 
as came his way, and all because he wanted 
to gaze upon the daughter of the Keeper of 
the Key. In the evening he would go by 
the mansion singing out, “ How up ! how 
up ! how up !” as if he were driving flocks 
past. And in the window he would see the 
wave of a white hand. He would go home, 
then, to his little back room in the lodging- 
house, and there stay up very late at night, 
writing, in the candle-light, verses to the 
damsel. One Song of the Shepherd Boy to 
his Lady has survived * 


136 WAYSIDERS 

Farewell to the sweet reed I tuned on the 

hill 

My griej for the rough slopes of Sunnach 
so still , 

The wind in the fir tree and bleat of the 
ewe 

Are lost in the wild cry my heart makes jor 
you. 

The brown floors I danced on, the sheds 
where I lay. 

Are gone jrom my mind like a wing in the 
bay : 

Dear lady, Td herd the wild swans in the 
skies 

If they k neu > of loke water as blue as your 
eyes ! 

Well, it was not very long, as you can 
imagine, until the Keeper of the Key 
observed the shepherd boy loitering about 
the mansion. When he heard him calling 
past the house to imaginary flocks a scowl 
came upon his face. “ Ah-ha !’* he said, 
“ another conspiracy ! Last time it was a 
hunchback tailor. This time they come 
from the country. They signal by the cries 
of shepherds. Well, I shall do the driving 
for them ! ’ * There and then he had the 


THE GRAY LAKE 


157 


shepherd boy apprehended, bound, and put 
in a cell. In due course he was accused 
and sentenced, like the famous goldsmiths, 
to banishment from Eirinn. When the 
daughter of the Keeper heard what had 
come to pass she was filled with grief . She 
appeared before her father for the first time 
with tears in her eyes and woe in her face. 
He was greatly moved, and seated the girl 
by his side. She knelt by his knee and 
confessed to the whole affair with the shep- 
herd boy. The Keeper of the Key was a 
little relieved to learn that his suspicions of 
a fresh conspiracy were unfounded, but 
filled with indignation that such a person 
as a shepherd should not alone aspire to 
but win the heart of his daughter. “ What 
have we come to,” he said, “ when a wild 
thing from the hills of Sunnach comes down 
and dares to lay his hand on the all but 
perfect water nymphs on the golden knob 
of my door ! Justice shall be done. The 
order of banishment is set aside. Let this 
wild hare of the hills, this mountain rover, 
be taken and seven times publicly dipped 
in the well. I guarantee that will cool him ! 
He shall then have until break of day to 
clear out of my town. Let him away back 


158 


WAYSIDERS 


to the swine on the hills.” The girl pleaded 
that the boy might be spared the frightful 
indignity of a public dipping in the well of 
the Seven Sisters, but her father was 
implacable. “Have I not spoken?” he 
said sternly, and the damsel was led away 
by her governess in tears. 

The people flocked to the well as they 
might to a Feis to see the dipping of the 
shepherd boy. Cries of merriment arose 
among them when the boy, bound in strips 
of hide, was lowered by the servants of the 
Keeper of the Key into the mouth of the 
great well. It was a cold, dark, creepy 
place down in the shaft of the well, the 
walls reeking, covered with slimy green 
lichen, the waters roaring. The shepherd 
boy closed his eyes and gave himself up for 
lost. But the Seven Sisters of the well kept 
moving down as fast as the servants told out 
the rope, until at last they could not lower 
him any farther. The servants danced the 
rope up and down seven times, and the 
people screamed and clapped their hands, 
crying out, ” All those who write love 
verses come to a bad end ! * * But the poet 
was never yet bom who had not a friend 
greater than all his enemies. At that 


THE GRAY LAKE 


159 


moment the spirits of the Seven Sisters rose 
out of the water and spoke to the shepherd 
boy. 

“ O shepherd boy,” they said, ” the 
Keeper of the Key is also our enemy. We 
were created for something better than this 
narrow shaft. We cry out in bitter pain the 
long hours of the night.” 

” Why do you cry out in bitter pain?” 
asked the shepherd boy. 

” Because,” said the spirits of the Seven 
Sisters, ” we want to leap out of this cold 
place to meet our lover, the moon. Every 
night he comes calling to us and we dare 
not respond. We are locked away under 
the heavy lid. We can never gather our full 
strength to burst our way to liberty. We 
dream of the pleasant valley. We want to 
get out into it, to make merry about the 
trees, to sport in the warm places, to lip 
the edge of the green meadows, to water 
pleasant gardens. We want to see the 
flowers, to flash in the sun, to dance under 
the spread of great branches, to make snug, 
secret places for the pike and the otter, to 
pile up the coloured pebbles, and hear the 
water-hen splashing in the rushes. And 
above all, we want to meet our lover, the 


160 


WAYSIDERS 


moon, to roll about in his beams, to reach 
for his kiss in the harvest nights. O shep- 
herd boy, take us from our prison well !” 

“O Seven Sisters,” asked the shepherd 
boy, “ how can 1 do this for you?” 

” Secure the secret key,” they said. 
“ Open the lid while we are at our full 
strength in the night.” 

” Alas,” said the shepherd boy, ” that 1 
cannot do. The Keeper has made of it a 
magic thing.” 

” We know his great secret,” said the 
spirits of the Seven Sisters. ” Swear to set 
us free and we shall tell you the secret of 
the key.” 

” And what reward shall I have?” asked 
the shepherd boy. 

“You shall have the hand of the daughter 
of the Keeper of the Key, the Lady of your 
Songs,” they said. “ Take her back to the 
hills where you were so happy. We shall 
spare you when we are abroad.” 

“Then,” said the shepherd boy, “1 
swear to release you.” 

“ The Keeper of the Key,” said the 
spirits of the Seven Sisters, “ has a devil 
lurking behind the fine manners of his body. 
In secret he laughs at the people. He has 


THE GRAY LAKE 


161 


the blood of the five goldsmiths on his 
hands. It was by his connivance the 
curragh sprang a leak, and that they were 
drowned. They were true artists, of the 
spirit of the Gael. But they alone knew his 
secret, and he made away with them before 
they could speak. His great controversy on 
the water nymphs was like a spell cast over 
the minds of the people to cover his crime.’* 

“What a demon!” cried the shepherd 
boy. 

“ The key of the well,” said the spirits 
of the Seven Sisters, “ is concealed in the 
great golden knob of the oaken door, and 
upon that has concentrated the greatest 
public scrutiny which has ever beaten upon 
a door-knob in the story of the whole world. 
Such has been the craft of the Keeper of 
the Key ! When he comes out in the 
morning and evening, and while drawing 
the door after him, he puts a finger on the 
third toe of the fourth water nymph. This 
he presses three times, quick as a pulse- 
beat, and, lo, a hidden spring is released 
and shoots fhe key into the loose sleeve of 
his coat. On returning he puts his hand 
on the golden knob, presses the second toe 
pf the third water nymph, and the key slides 


162 


WAYSIDERS 


back into its hidden cavity. This secret 
was alone known to the goldsmiths. They 
went to the bottom of the sea with it. In 
this way has the Keeper of the Key held 
his power and defied his enemies. When 
the scholars were making epigrams and the 
bards warming into great cadences on the 
art of the ankle of the water nymph, this 
Keeper of the Key would retire to his watch- 
tower and roll about in secret merriment.* * 
“ What a fiend !** cried the shepherd boy. 
“ He had caused to be painted in his 
room a scroll surrounded by illuminated 
keys and nymphs and tumbling cascades, 
and bearing the words, * Let us praise the 
art which conceals art; but let us love the 
art which conceals power.* ’* 

“What a monster!** cried the shepherd 
boy. 

“ In this way,** said the spirits of the 
Seven Sisters, “ has he lived. In this way 
has he been able to keep us from our 

freedom, our lover. O shepherd boy ’* 

Before another word could be spoken the 
shepherd boy was drawn up on the rope. 
The water rose with him and lapped lightly 
over his person so that he might seem as if 
he had been plunged deeply into the well. 


THE GRAY LAKE 


163 


When he was drawn up to the side of 
the well the shepherd boy lay on the 
ground, his eyes closed, feigning great 
distress. The people again clapped their 
hands, and some cried out, “ Now little 
water rat, make us a new verse!” But 
others murmured in pity, and an old peasant 
woman, in a Breedeen cloak, hobbled to his 
side and smoothed back his locks. At the 
touch of her soft hands the shepherd boy 
opened his eyes, and he saw it was the 
daughter of the Keeper of the Key dis- 
guised. With the connivance of her 
governess, she had escaped from the 
mansion as an old peasant woman in a 
cloak. The shepherd boy secretly kissed 
her little palms and whispered, “ I must 
come to you at midnight. As you value 
your life have the guards taken from the 
outer door, only for two minutes. Make 
some pretext. I will give the shepherd’s call 
and then you must act. Do not fail me.” 

Before more could be said the servants 
roughly bundled the old peasant woman 
aside, carried the shepherd boy to his 
lodgings, and there threw him on his bed. 
” Remember,” they said^ ** that you remain 


164 


WAYSIDERS 


within the walls of the town of the Seven 
Sisters after break of day at your peril.” 

At midnight the shepherd boy arose and 
approached the mansion of the Keeper of 
the Key. He could see the two grim 
guards, one each side of the oaken door. 
Standing some way off he gave the shep- 
herd’s call, making his voice sound like 
the hoot of an owl. In a little time he saw 
the guards move away from the door; they 
went to a side entrance in the courtyard, 
and presently he could hear them laughing, 
as if some entertainment was being pro- 
vided for them; then measures were passed 
through the iron bars of the gate to them, 
and these they raised to their lips. At this 
the shepherd boy ran swiftly up the steps, 
approached the door, and pressed three 
times, quick as a pulse-beat, the third toe 
of the fourth water nymph, and im- 
mediately from a secret cavity in the knob 
a curious little golden key was shot forth. 
This the shepherd boy seized, flew down 
the steps, and scaled over the town wall. 
He ran to the great well and stooped over 
the lid. He could hear the Seven Sisters 
twisting and worming and striving beneath 
it, little cries of pain breaking from them. 


THE GRAY LAKE 165 

Overhead the moon was shining down on 
the well. 

“ O Seven Sisters,” said the Shepherd 
boy, “ I have come to give you to your 
lover.” 

He could hear a great cry of joy down 
in the well. He put the key in the lock, 
turned it, and immediately there was the 
gliding and slipping of one steel bar after 
another into an oil bath. The great lid 
slowly revolved, moving away from over 
the well. The Seven Sisters did the rest. 
They sprang with a peal of the most 
delirious laughter — laughter that was of the 
underground, the cavern, the deep secret 
places of the earth, laughter of elfs and 
hidden rivers — to the light of the moon, 
The shepherd boy could see seven distinct 
spiral issues of sparkling water and they 
took the shape of nymphs, more exquisite 
than anything he had ever seen even in his 
dreams. Something seemed to happen in 
the very heavens above; the moon reached 
down from the sky, swiftly and tenderly, 
and was so dazzling that the shepherd boy 
had to turn his face away. He knew that 
in the blue spaces of the firmament over- 
head the moon was embracing the Seven 


166 


WAYSIDERS 


Sisters. Then he ran, ran like the wind, 
for already the water was shrieking down 
the streets of the town. As he went he 
could see lights begin to jump in dark 
windows and sleepy people in their night 
attire coming to peer out into the strange 
radiance outside. 

As he reached the drawbridge he saw 
that the men had already lowered it, and 
there was a great rustling noise and squeal- 
ing ; and what he took to be a drift of thick 
dust driven by the wind was gushing over 
it, making from the town. A few more 
yards and he saw that it was not thick 
brown dust, but great squads of rats flying 
the place. The trumpets were all blowing 
loud blasts when he reached the mansion 
of the Keeper of the Key, the guards with 
their spears pressing out under the arch of 
the courtyard, and servants coming out the 
doors. The great oak door flew open and 
he saw the Keeper of the Key, a candle in 
his quaking hand. A great crying could 
now be heard coming up from the 
population of the town. The water was 
bursting open the doors of the houses as if 
they were cardboard. 

“ O Keeper of the Key,” cried the shep- 


167 


THE GRAY LAKE 

herd boy, “ the Seven Sisters are abroad. 
1 am obeying your command and returning 
to the swine on the hills. The despised 
Sunnach will be in the dreams of many 
to-night ! ’ * 

The candle fell from the hand of the 
Keeper of the Key, and he could be seen 
in the moonlight groping for the door-knob, 
his hand on the figures of the group of 
water nymphs. In a moment he gave a low 
moan and, his head hanging over his 
breast, he staggered down the marble steps. 
“Alas,** cried the guards, “now is the 
great man broken!** He made for the 
drawbridge crying out, “ The lid, the lid. 
Slide it back over the well!’* The guards 
and servants pressed after him, but not one 
of them ever got into the town again. 
Across the bridge was now pouring a wild 
rush of human panic. Carriages, carts, 
cars, horsemen, mules, donkeys, were 
flying from the Seven Sisters laden with 
men and women and whole families. 
Crowds pressed forward on foot. Animals, 
dogs, cats, pigs, sheep, cows, came pell- 
mell with them. Drivers stood in their 
seats flaying their horses as if driven by 
madness. The animals rolled their eyes, 


168 


WAYSIDERS 


snorted steam from their nostrils, strained 
forward with desperate zeal. Once or 
twice the struggling mass jammed, and 
men fought each other like beasts. The 
cries of people being trampled to death 
broke out in harrowing protest. For a 
moment the shepherd boy saw the form of 
a priest rise up, bearing aloft the stark out- 
line of a cross, and then he disappeared. 

Over that night of terror was the un- 
natural brilliance of the swoollen moon. 
All this the shepherd boy saw in a few 
eternal moments. Then he cried out, 
“How up! how up! how up!“ and im- 
mediately the damsel tripped down the 
broad staircase of the mansion, dressed in 
white robes, her hair loose about her 
shoulders. Never had she looked so frail 
and beautiful, the lily of the valley ! The 
shepherd boy told her what had come to 
pass. She cried out for her father. “ I am 
the daughter of the Keeper of the Key,“ 
she said. “ I shall stand by his side at the 
well in this great hour.“ 

“ I am now the master of the town of the 
Seven Sisters,” said the shepherd boy. “ 1 
am the Keeper of the Key.” And he held 
up the secret key. 


THE GRAY LAKE 




The damsel, seeing this, and catching 
sight of what was taking place at the draw- 
bridge, fell back in a swoon on the carpet 
of the hall. The shepherd boy raised her 
in his arms and fled for the hills. Along 
the road was the wild stampede of the 
people, all straining for the hills, pouring 
in a mad rush from the valley and the 
town. Behind them were the still madder, 
swifter, more terrible waters, coming in 
sudden thuds, in furious drives, eddying 
and sculping and rearing in an orgy ot 
remorseless and heartrending destruction. 
Down before that roaring avalanche went 
walls and trees and buildings. The shep- 
herd boy saw men give up the struggle for 
escape, cowering by the roadside, and 
women, turning from the race to the 
hills, rushed back to meet the oncoming 
waters with arms outspread and insanity 
in their wild eyes. 

Not a human creature escaped that night 
of wroth except the shepherd boy and the 
damsel he carried in his arms. Every time 
the waters reached his heels they reared up 
like great white horses and fell back, thus 
sparing him. Three times did he look back 
at happenings in the town of the Seven 


170 


WAYSIDERS 


Sisters. The first time he looked back the 
water was up to the last windows of 
houses that were three storeys high. All 
the belongings of the householders were 
floating about, and people were sinking 
through the water, their lives going out as 
swiftly as twinkling bubbles. In an attic 
window he saw a young girl loosen her 
hair, she was singing a song, preparing to 
meet death as if she were making ready 
for a lover. A man at the top of a ladder 
was gulping whiskey from a bottle, and 
when the water sprang at his throat he went 
down with a mad defiant cry. A child ran 
out an open window, golden locks dancing 
about its pretty head, as if it were running 
into a garden. There was another little 

bubble in the moonlight The 

second time the shepherd boy looked back 
the swallows were flying from their nests 
under the eaves of the houses, for the water 
was now lapping them. An old woman 
was hobbling across a roof on crutches. 
Men were drawing their bodies out of the 
chimney-pots. A raft on which the 
Keeper’s guard had put out slowly, like a 
live thing lazily yawning and turning over 
on its side, sent them all into the common 


THE GRAY LAKE 171 

doom. A man with a bag of gold clutched 
in his hand, stood dizzily on the high gable 
of a bank, then, with a scream, tottered and 
fell The third time the shep- 

herd boy looked back nothing was to be 
seen above the face of the water except the 
pinnacle of the watch tower of the mansion, 
and standing upon it was the Keeper of the 
Key, his arms outspread, his face upturned 
to the moon, and the seven water nymphs 
leaping about him in a silver dance. 

After that the shepherd boy drew up on 
the hills with the damsel. He was quite 
exhausted, and he noticed that the activity 
of the waters gradually calmed down as 
daybreak approached, like things spent 
after a night of wild passion. When at last 
the day quivered into life on the eastern 
sky he called the damsel to his side, and 
standing there together they looked out over 
the spread of water. The town of the 
Seven Sisters was no more. 

'* Look,” cried the shepherd boy, “ at 
Loch Riabhach!” And drawing back he 
cast out into the far water the secret key. 
There it still lies under a rock, somewhere 
in the lake over which our boat is now drift- 
ing. And the shepherd boy and the damsel 


Ml 


WAYSIDERS 


there and then founded a new town beside 
the lake, and all who are of the old families 
of Baile Loch Riabhach, like myself, are 
their descendants. That, concluded 
Eamonn, is the story of the Gray Lake. 


THE BUILDING 


I 



p^ARTIN COSGRAVE walked 

_t 3:1.. L- 1 ll: 


up steadily to his holding 
after Ellen Miscal had read to 
him the American letter. He 
had spoken no word to the 


woman. It was not every day that he had 
to battle with a whirl of thoughts. A quiet 
man of the fields, he only felt conscious of 
a strong impulse to get back to his holding 
up on the hill. He had no clear idea of 
what he would do or what he would think 
when he got back to his holding. But the 
fields seemed to cry out to him, to call him 
back to their companionship, while all the 
wonders of the resurrection were breaking 
in fresh upon his life. 

Martin Cosgrave walked his fields and 
put his flock of sheep scurrying out of a gap 
with a whistle. His holding and the things 
of his holding were never so precious to his 
sight. He walked his fields with his hands 



174 


WAYSIDERS 


in his pockets and an easy, solid step upon 
the sod. He felt a bracing sense of 
security. 

Then he sat up on the mearing. 

The day was waning. It seemed to close 
in about his holding with a new protection. 
The mood grew upon him as the shadows 
deepened. A great peace came over him. 
The breeze stirring the grass spread out at 
his feet seemed to whisper of the strange 
unexpected thing that had broken in upon 
his life. He felt the splendid companion- 
ship of the fields for the master. 

Suddenly Martin Cosgrave looked down 
at his cabin. Something snapped as his 
eyes remained riveted upon it. He leapt 
from the mearing and walked out into the 
field, his hands this time gripping the lapels 
of his coat, a cloud settling upon his brow. 
In the centre of the field he stood, his eyes 
still upon the cabin. What a mean, pokey, 
ugly little dirty hovel it was ! The thatch 
was getting scraggy over the gables and 
sagging at the back. In the front it was 
sodden. A rainy brown streak reached 
down to the little window looking like the 
claw of a great bird upon the walls. He 
had been letting everything go to the bad, 


THE BUILDING 175 

That might not signify in the past. But 
now 

“ Rose Dempsey would never stand the 
like,** he said to himself. “ She will be 
used to grand big houses.” 

He turned his back upon the cabin near 
the boreen and looked up to the belt of 
beech trees swaying in the wind on the 
crest of the hill. How did he live there 
most of his life and never see that it was a 
place fashioned by the hand of Nature for a 
house? Was it not the height of nonsense 
to have trees there making music all the 
long hours of the night without a house 
beside them and people sleeping within it? 
In a few minutes the thought had taken 
hold of his mind. Limestone — beautiful 
limestone — ready at hand in the quarry not 
a quarter of a mile down the road. Sand 
from the pit at the back of his own cabin. 
Lime from the kiln beyond the road. And 
his own two hands ! He ran his fingers 
along the muscles of his arms. Then he 
walked up the hill. 

Martin Cosgrave, as he walked up the 
hill, felt himself wondering for the first 
time in his life if he had really been foolish 
to have rup away from his father’s cabin 


176 


WAYSIDERS 


when he had been young. Up to this he 
had always accepted the verdict of the 
people about him that he had been a foolish 
boy “to go wandering in strange places. “ 
He had walked along the roads to many 
far towns. Then he had struck his friend, 
the building contractor. He had been a 
useful worker about a building house. At 
first he had carried hods of mortar and 
cement up ladders to the masons. The 
business of the masons he had mastered 
quickly. But he had always had a longing 
to hold a chisel in one hand and a mallet 
in the other at work upon stone. He had 
drifted into a quarry, thence to a stone- 
cutting yard. After a little while he could 
not conceal his impatience with the mere 
dressing of coping stones or the chiselling 
out of tombstones to a pattern. Then he 
saw the man killed in the quarry. He was 
standing quite near to him. The chain of 
the windlass went and the poor man had 
no escape. Martin Cosgrave had heard the 
crunch of the skull on the boulder, and 
some of the blood was spattered upon his 
boots. He was a man of tense nerves. 
The sight of blood sickened him. He put 


THE BUILDING 177 

on his coat, left the quarry, and went 
walking along the road. 

It was while he walked along the road 
that the longing for his home came upon 
him. He tramped back to his home above 
Kilbeg. His father had been long dead, 
but by his return he had glorified the 
closing days of his mother’s life. He took 
up the little farm and cut himself off from 
his wandering life when he had fetched 
the tools from his lodgings in the town 
beside the quarries. 

By the time Martin Cosgrave had reached 
the top of the hill he had concluded that he 
had not, after all, been a foolish boy to 
work in far places. “ The hand of God 
was in it,” he said reverently with his eyes 
on the beech trees that made music on the 
crest of the hill. 

He made a rapid survey of the place 
with his keen eyes. Then he mapped out 
the foundation of the building by driving 
the heel of his boot into the green sod. He 
stepped back among the beecK trees and 
looked out at the outlined site of the 
building. He saw it all growing up in his 
mind’s eye, at first a rough block, a mere 
shell, a little uncertain and unsatisfactory. 


178 


WAYSIDERS 


Then the uncertainties were lbpped off, the 
building took shape, touch after touch was 
added. Long shadows spread out from the 
trees and wrapped the fields. Stars came 
out in the sky. But Martin Cosgrave never 
noticed these things. The building was 
growing all the time. There was a firm 
grasp of the general scheme, a realisation 
of what the building would evolve that no 
other building ever evolved, what it would 
proclaim for all time. The passing of the 
day and the stealth of the night could not 
claim attention from a man who was living 
over a dream that was fashioning itself in 
his mind, abandoning himself to the joy of 
his creation, dwelling longingly upon the 
details of the building, going over and, as 
it were, feeling it in every fibre, jealous of 
the effect of every stone, tracing the trend 
and subtlety of every curve, seeing how one 
touch fitted in and enhanced the other and 
how all carried on the meaning of the 
whole. 

When he came down from the hill there 
was a spring in Martin Cosgrave’s step. 
He swung his arms. The blood was 
coursing fast through his veins. His eyes 
were glowing. He would need to make a 


THE BUILDING 179 

map of the building. It was all burned 
clearly into his brain. 

From under the bed of his cabin he 
pulled out the wooden box. It had not 
been opened since he had fetched it from 
the far town. He held his breath as he 
threw open the lid. There they lay, the 
half-forgotten symbols of his old life. Worn 
mallets, chisels, the head of a broken hod 
with the plaster still caked into it, a short 
broad shovel for mixing mortar, a trowel, 
a spirit level, a plumb, all wrapped loosely 
in a worn leather apron. He took the mal- 
lets in his hand and turned them about with 
the quick little jerks that came so naturally 
to him. Strength for the work had come 
into his arms. All the old ambitions which 
he thought had been stifled with his early 
manhood sprang to life again. 

As he lay in his bed that night Martin 
Cosgrave felt himself turning over and over 
again the words in the letter which Rose 
Dempsey had sent to her aunt, Ellen 
Miscal, from America. “Tell Martin 
Cosgrave,” the letter read, “ that I will be 
back home in Kilbeg by the end of the 
spring. If he has no wish for any other girl 
1 am willing to settle down.” Beyond the 


180 


WAYSIDERS 


announcement that her sister Sheela would 
be with her for a holiday, the letter 
“ brought no other account.” But what an 
account it had brought to Martin Cosgrave ! 
The fields understood — the building would 
proclaim. 

Early in the morning Martin Cosgrave 
went down to Ellen Miscal to tell her what 
to put in the letter that was going back to 
Rose Dempsey in America. Martin Cos- 
grave walked heavily into the house and 
stood with his back against the dresser. 
He turned the soft black hat about in his 
hands nervously and talked like one who 
was speaking sacred words. 

“Tell her,” he said, “ that Martin Cos- 
grave had no thought for any other person 
beyond herself. Tell her to be coming 
back to Kilbeg. Tell her not to come until 
the late harvest.” 

Ellen Miscal, who sat over the sheet of 
writing paper on the table, looked up 
quickly as he spoke the words. As she did 
so she was conscious of the new animation 
that vivified the idealistic face of Martin 
Cosgrave. But he did not give her time 
to question him. 

” I have my own reasons for asking her 


THE BUILDING 181 

to wait until the harvest,*' he said, with 
some irritation. 

He stayed at the dresser until Ellen 
Miscal had written the letter. He carried 
it down to the village and posted it with his 
own hand, and he went and came as 
gravely as if he had been taking part in 
some solemn ritual. 


II 

That day the building was begun. 
Martin Cosgrave tackled the donkey and 
drew a few loads of limestone from the 
nearby quarry. Some of the neigh- 
bours who came his way found him 
a changed man, a silent man with 
his eager face set, a man in whose 
eyes a new light shone, a quiet man 
of the fields into whose mind a set pur- 
pose had come. He struggled up the road 
with his donkey-cart, his hand gripping the 
shaft to hasten the steps of the slow brute, 
his limbs bent to the hill, his head down at 
the work. By the end of the week a pile of 
grey-blue stones was heaped up on the crest 
of the hill. The walls of the fields had 


182 


WAYSIDERS 


been broken down to make a car way. Late 
into the night when the donkey had been 
fed and tethered the neighbours would see 
Martin Cosgrave moving about the pile of 
grey-blue stones, sorting and picking, 
arranging in little groups to have ready to 
his hands. “ A house he is going to put 
up on the hill,” they would say, lost in 
wonder. 

The spring came, and with it all the 
strenuous work on the land. But Martin 
Cosgrave went on with the building. The 
neighbours shook their heads at the sight 
of neglect that was gathering about his 
holding; they said it was flying in the face 
of Providence when Martin Cosgrave 
weaned all the lambs from the ewes one 
day, long before their time, and sold them 
at the fair to the first bidder that came his 
way. Martin Cosgrave did so because he 
wanted money and was in a hurry to get 
back to his building. 

What call has a man to be destroying 
himself like that?** the neighbours asked 
each other. 

Martin Cosgrave knew what the neigh- 
bours were saying about him. But what 
did he care ? What thought had any of 


THE BUILDING 


183 


them for the heart of a builder ? What did 
any of them know beyond putting a spade 
in the clay and waiting for the seasons to 
send up growing things from the seed they 
scattered by their hands? What did they 
know about the feel of the rough stone in 
the hand and the shaping of it to fit into 
the building, the building that day after 
day you saw rising up from the ground by 
the skill of your hand and the art of your 
mind? What could they in Kilbeg know 
of the ship that would plough the ocean in 
the harvest bearing Rose Dempsey home 
to him? For all their ploughing and their 
sowing, what sort of a place had any of 
them led a woman into? They might talk 
away. The joy of the builder was his. The 
beech trees that made music all day beside 
the building he was putting up to the sight 
of all the world had more understanding 
of him than all the people of the parish. 

Martin Cosgrave had no help. He kept 
to his work from such an early hour in the 
morning until such a late hour of the night 
that the people marvelled at his endurance. 
But as the work went on the people would 
talk about Martin Cosgrave’s building in 
the fields and tell strangers of it at the 


184 


WAYS1DERS 


markets. They said that the like of it had 
never been seen in the countryside. It was 
to be “ full of little turrets and the finest of 
fancy porches and a regular sight of bulging 
windows.” One day that Martin Cosgrave 
heard a neighbour speaking about the 
“bulging windows” he laughed a half- 
bitter, half-mocking laugh. 

“Tell them,” he said, “ that they are 
cut-stone tracery windows to fit in with the 
carved doors.” These cut-stone windows 
and carved doors cost Martin Cosgrave 
such a length of time that they provoked 
the patience of the people. Out of big 
slabs of stone he had worked them, and 
sometimes he would ask the neighbours to 
give him a hand in the shifting of these 
slabs. But he was quick to resent any inter- 
ference. One day a stone-cutter from the 
quarry went up on the scaffold, and when 
Martin Cosgrave saw him he went white 
to the lips and cursed so bitterly that those 
standing about walked away. 

When the shell of the building had been 
finished Martin Cosgrave hired a carpenter 
to do all the woodwork. The woodwork 
cost money. Martin Cosgrave did not 
hesitate. He sold some of his sheep, sold 


Thl building 


185 


them hurriedly, and as all men who sell 
their sheep hurriedly, he sold them badly. 
When the carpentry had been finished, the 
roofing cost more money. One day the 
neighbours discovered that all the sheep 
had been sold. “ He’s beggared now,” 
they said. 

The farmer who turned the sod a few 
fields away laboured in the damp 
atmosphere of growing things, his mind 
filled with thoughts of bursting seeds and 
teeming barns. He shook his head at sight 
of Martin Cosgrave above on the hill bent 
all day over hard stones ; whenever he 
looked up he only caught the glint of a 
trowel, or heard the harsh grind of a chisel. 
But Martin Cosgrave took no stock of the 
men reddening the soil beneath him. 
Whenever his eyes travelled down the hill- 
side he only saw the flock of crows that 
hung over the head of the digger. The 
study of the veins of limestone that he 
turned in his hands, the slow moulding of 
the crude shapes to their place in the 
building, the rhythm and swing of the 
mallet in his arm, the zest with which he 
felt the impact of the chisel on the stone, 
the ring of forging steel, the consciousness 


186 


WAYS1DERS 


of mastery over the work that lay to his 
hands — these were the things that seemed 
to him to give life a purpose and man a 
destiny. He would whistle a tune as he 
mixed the mortar with the broad shovel, 
for it gave him a feeling of the knitting of 
the building with the ages. He pitied the 
farmer who looked helplessly upon his corn 
as it was beaten to the ground by the first 
storm that blew from the sea; he was upon 
a work that would withstand the storms of 
centuries. The scent of lime and mortar 
greeted his nostrils. When he moved about 
the splinters crunched under his feet. 
Everything around him was hard and stub- 
born, but he was the master of it all. In 
his dreams in the night he would reach out 
his hands for the feel of the hard stone, a 
burning desire in his breast to put it into 
shape, to give it nobility in the scheme of 
a building. 

It was while Martin Cosgrave walked 
through the building that Ellen Miscal came 
to him with the second letter from America. 
The carpenter was hammering at some- 
thing below. The letter said that Rose 
Dempsey and her sister, Sheela, would be 
home in the late harvest. “ With all I saw 


THE BUILDING 


187 


since I left Kilbeg,” Rose Dempsey wrote, 
“ I never saw one that I thought as much 
of as Martin Cosgrave.” 

When Ellen Miscal left him, Martin Cos- 
grave stood very quietly looking through 
the cut-stone tracery window. The beech 
trees were swaying slowly outside. Their 
music was in his ears. 

Then he remembered that he was stand- 
ing in the room where he would take Rose 
Dempsey in his arms. It was here he 
would tell her of all the bitter things he had 
locked up in his heart when she had gone 
away from him. It was here he would tell 
her of the day of resurrection, when all the 
bitter thoughts had burst into flower at the 
few words that told of her return. It was 
that day of great tumult within him that 
thought of the building had come into his 
mind. 

When Martin Cosgrave walked out of 
the room the carpenter and a neighbour 
boy were arguing about something at the 
foot of the stairs. 

“ It’s too steep. I’m telling you,” the boy 
was saying. 

“ What do you know about it 7” 

“ I know this much about it, that if a 


188 


WAYSIDERS 


little child came running down that stairs 
he’d be apt to fall and break his neck. 

Then the two men went out, still arguing. 

Martin Cosgrave sat down on one of the 
steps of the stairs. A child running down 
the steps ! His child ! A child bearing his 
name ! He would be prattling about the 
building. He would run across that land- 
ing, swaying and tottering. His little voice 
would fill the building. Arms would be 
reaching out to him. They would be the 
soft white arms of Rose Dempsey, or 
maybe, they would be the arms that raised 
up the building — his own strong arms. Or 
it might be that he would be carrying down 
the child and handing him over the rails 
there into the outspread arms of Rose 
Dempsey. She would be reaching out for 
the child with the newly-kindled light of 
motherhood in her eyes, the passion of a 
young mother in her welcoming voice. A 
child with his very name — a child that 
would grow up to be a man and hand down 
the name to another, and so on during the 
generations. And with the name would 
go down the building, the building that 
would endure, that would live, that was 
immortal. Did it all come to him as a 


THE BUILDING 


189 


sudden revelation, springing from the idle 
talk of a neighbour boy brought up to work 
from one season to another? Or was it 
the same thing that was behind the forces 
that had fired him while he had worked 
at the building? Had it not all come into 
his life the evening he stood among his 
fields with his eyes on the crest of the 

hill? 

Ah, there had been a great building 
surely, a building standing up on the hill, 
a great, a splendid building raised up to 
the sight of all the world, and with it a 
greater building, a building raised up from 
the sight of all men, the building of a name, 
the moulding of hearts that would beat 
while Time was, a building of immortal 
souls, a building into which God would 
breathe His breath, a building which would 
be heard of in Heaven, among the angels, 
through all the eternities, a building living 
on when all the light was gone out of the 
sun, when oceans were as if they had never 
been, a name, a building, living when the 
story of all the worlds and all the genera- 
tions would be held written upon a scroll in 
the lap of God. . . . The face of the 

dreamer as he abandoned himself to his 


190 WAYSIDERS 

thoughts was pallid with a half-fanatical 
emotion. 

The neighbours were more awed than 
shocked at the change they saw increasing 
in Martin Cosgrave. He had grown paler 
and thinner, but his eyes were more tense, 
had in them, some of the neighbours said, 
the colour of the limestone. He was more 
and more removed from the old life. He 
walked his fields without seeing the things 
that made up the old companionship. His 
whole attitude was one of detachment from 
everything that did not savour of the crunch 
of stone, the ring of steel on the walls of a 
building. He only talked rationally when 
the neighbours spoke to him of the build- 
ing. They had heard that he had gone to 
the money-lender, and mortgaged every 
perch of his land. “ It was easy to know 
how work of the like would end,** they 
said. 

One day a stranger was driving by on 
his car, and when he saw the building he 
got down, walked up the hill, and made a 
long study of it. On his way down he met 
Martin Cosgrave. 

“Who built the house on the hill?’* he 
asked. 


THE BUILDING 


191 


" A simple man in the neighbourhood,” 
Martin Cosgrave made answer, after a little 
pause. 

* 4 A simple man ! * * the stranger 
exclaimed, looking at Martin Cosgrave 
with some disapproval. ‘‘Well, he has 
attempted something anyway. He may not 
have succeeded, but the artist is in him 
somewhere. He has created a sort of — 
well, lyric — in stone on that hill. Extra- 
ordinary !” 

The stranger hesitated before he hit on 
the word lyric. He got up on his car and 
drove away muttering something under his 
breath. 

Martin Cosgrave could have run up the 
hill and shouted. He could have called 
all the neighbours together and told them 
of the strange man who had praised the 
building. 

But he did none of these things. He had 
work waiting to his hand. A hunger was 
upon him to feel his pulse beating to the 
throb of steel on stone. From the road he 
made a sweep of a drive up to the build- 
ing. The neighbours looked open-mouthed 
at the work for the days it went on. “Well, 


192 WAYSIDERS 

that finishes Martin Cosgrave anyway,” 
they said. 

Martin Cosgrave rushed the making of 
the drive ; he took all the help he could get. 
The boys would come up after their day’s 
work and give him a hand. While they 
worked he was busy with his chisel upon 
the boulders of limestone which he had set 
up on either side of the entrance gate. Once 
more he felt the glamour of life — the impact 
of forging steel on stone was thrilling 
through his arms, the stone was being 
moulded to the direction of his exulting 
mind. 

When he had finished with the boulders 
at the entrance gate the people marvelled. 
The gate had a glory of its own, and yet 
it was connected with the scheme of the 
building on the hill palpably enough for 
even their minds to grasp it. When the 
people looked upon it they forgot to make 
complaint of the good land that was given 
to ruin. One of them had expressed the 
general vague sentiment when he said, 
“Well, the kite has got its tail.” 

In the late harvest Martin Cosgrave car- 
ried up all the little sticks of furniture from 
his cabin and put it in the building. Then 


THE BUILDING 


m 


he sent for Ellen Miscal. When the woman 
came she looked about the place in 
amazement. 

“Well, of all the sights in the world!” 
she exclaimed. 

Martin Cosgrave was irritated at the 
woman’s attitude. 

“ We’ll have to make the best of it,’’ he 
said, looking at the furniture. “ I will be 
marrying Rose Dempsey in the town some 
days after she lands.’’ 

“ Rose would never like the suddenness 
of that,’’ her aunt protested. “ She can be 
staying with me and marrying from my 
house.’’ 

“ 1 saw the priest about it,’’ Martin Cos- 
grave said impatiently. “ I will have my 
way, Ellen Miscal. Rose Dempsey will 
come up to Kilbeg my wife. We will come 
in the gate together, we will walk in to 
the building together. I will have my 
way.” 

Martin Cosgrave spoke of having his way 
in the impassioned voice of the fanatic, 
of his home-coming with his bride in the 
half-dreamy voice of the visionary. 

“ Have your way, Martin, have your 
way,” the woman said. “ And,” she 


194 


WAYSIDER S 


added, rising, “ I will be bringing up a few 
things to put into your house.” 

111 

Martin Cosgrave spent three days in the 
town waiting the arrival of Rose Dempsey. 
The boat was late. He haunted the rail- 
way station, with hungry eyes scanned the 
passengers as each train steamed in. His 
blood was on fire in his veins for those 
three days. What peace could a man have 
who was waiting to get back to his building 
and to have Rose Dempsey going back with 
him, his wife? 

Sometimes he would sit down on the rail- 
way bench on the platform, staring down at 
the ground, smiling to himself. What a 
surprise he had in store for Rose ! What 
would he say to her first? Would he say 
anything of the building? No, he would 
say nothing at all of the building until they 
drove across the bridge and right up to the 
gate! “Rose,” he would then say, “do 
you remember the hill — the place under the 
beech trees?” She was sure to remember 
that place. It was there they had spent so 
much time, there he had first found her 


THE BUILDING 


195 


lips, there they had quarrelled ! And Rose 
would look up to that old place and see the 
building ! What would she think? Would 
she feel about it as he felt himself? She 
would, she would ! What sort of look 
would come into her face ? And what would 
he be able to tell her about it at all ? . . . 

He would say nothing at all about it; that 
would be the best way ! They would say 
nothing to each other, but walk in the gate 
and up the drive across the hill, the hill 
they often ran across in the old days ! They 
would be quite silent, and walk into the 
house silently. The building, too, would 
be silent, and he would take her from one 
room to another in silence, and when she 
had seen everything he would look into her 
eyes and say, “Well?” It would be all so 
like a wonderful story, a day of magic ! 

. Martin Cosgrave sprang from the 
bench and went to the edge of the platform, 
staring down the long level road, with its 
two rails tapering almost together in the 
distance. Not a sign of a train. Would it 
never come in? Had anything happened 
the boat? He walked up and down with 
energy, holding the lapel of his coat, saying 
to himself, ” I must not be thinking of 


196 


WAYSIDERS 


things like this. It is foolishness. What- 
ever is to happen will happen, and that’s 
all about it. I am quite at ease, quite 
cool ! ’ * 

At last it came, steaming and blowing. 
Windows were lowered, carriage doors flew 
open, people ran up and down. Martin 
Cosgrave stood a little away, tense, drawn, 
his eyes sweeping down the people. Sud- 
denly something shot through him; an old 
sensation, an old thrill, made his whole 
being tingle, his mind exult, and then there 
was the most exquisite relaxation. How 
long it was since he felt like this before ! 
His eyes were burning upon a familiar 
figure that had come from a carriage, the 
figure of a girl in a navy blue coat and skirt, 
her back turned, struggling with parcels, 
helped by the hands of invisible people 
from within the carriage. Martin Cosgrave 
strode down the platform, eagerness, joy, 
sense of proprietorship, already in his 
stride. 

“Rose!” he exclaimed while the girl’s 
back was still turned to him. 

His voice shook in spite of him. The 
woman turned about sharply. 

MaTtin Cosgrave gave a little start back, 


THE BUILDING 


197 


It was not Rose Dempsey, but her sister, 
Sheela. How like Rose she had grown ! 

“Martin!” she exclaimed, putting out 
her hand. He gave it a hurried shake and 
then searched the railway carriage with 
burning eyes. The people he saw there 
were all strangers, tired-looking travellers. 
When he turned from the railway carriage 
Sheela Dempsey was rushing with her 
parcels into a waiting-room. He strode 
after her. He looked at the girl. How 
unlike Rose she was after all ! Nobody — 
nobody — could ever be like Rose 
Dempsey ! 

“ Where is Rose?” he asked. 

Sheela Dempsey looked up into the face 
of Martin Cosgrave and saw there what 
she had half-dreaded to see. 

“ Martin,” she said, “ Rose is not com- 
ing home.” 

Martin Cosgrave gripped the door of the 
waiting-room. The train whistled outside 
and glided from the station. He heard a 
woman’s cheerful voice cry out a conven- 
tional “ good-bye, good-bye,” and through 
the window he saw the flutter of a dainty 
handkerchief. A truck was wheeled past 
the waiting-room. There was the crack of 


198 


WAYSIDERS 


a whip and some cars rattled away over the 
road. Then there was silence. 

Sheela Dempsey walked over to him and 
laid a hand upon his shoulder. When she 
spoke her voice was full of an understand- 
ing womanly sympathy. 

“ Don’t be troubling over it, Martin,” 
she said, “ Rose is not worth it.” She 
spoke her sister’s name with some 
bitterness. 

Vaguely Martin Cosgrave looked into the 
girl’s eyes. He read there in a dim way 
what the girl could not say of her sister. 

It was all so strange ! The waiting-room 
was so bare, so cold, so grey, so like a 
sepulchre. What could Sheela Dempsey 
with all her womanly understanding, with 
all her quick intuition, know of the things 
that happened beside her? How could she 
have ears for the crashing down of the pil- 
lars of the building that Martin Cosgrave 
had raised up in his soul? How could she 
have eyes for the wreck of the structure 
that was to go on through all the genera- 
tions ? What thought had she of the wiping 
out of a name that would have lived in the 
nation and continued for all time in the 
eternities, a tangible thing in Heaven 


THE BUILDING 199 

among the Immortals when the stars had 
all been burned out in the sky? 

Martin Cosgrave drove home from the 
railway station with Sheela Dempsey. He 
sat without a word, not really conscious of 
his surroundings as they covered the miles. 
The girl reached across the side-car, touch- 
ing him lightly on the shoulder. 

“Look!” she exclaimed. 

Martin Cosgrave looked up. The build- 
ing stood in the moonlight on the crest of 
the hill. He bade the driver pull up, and 
then got down from the car. 

“Who owns the house?” Sheela 
Dempsey asked. 

“ I do. I put it up on the hill for Rose.” 

There was silence for some time. 

“How did you get it built, Martin?” 
Sheela Dempsey asked, awe in her tone. 

“ I built it myself,” he answered. “ I 
wonder has Rose as good a place? What 
sort of a building is she in to-night?” 

Martin Cosgrave did not notice the sud- 
den quiver in the girl’s body as he put the 
question. But she made no reply, and the 
car drove on, leaving Martin Cosgrave 
standing alone at the gate of the building. 

The faint sweep of the drive lay before 


200 


WAYSIDERS 


him. It led his eyes up to the crest of the 
hill. There it was standing shadowy 
against the sky, every delicate outline clear 
to his vision. The beech trees were sway- 
ing beside it, reaching out like great shape- 
less arms in the night, blurred and beckon- 
ing and ghostly. A little vein of their music 
sounded in his ears. How often had he 
listened to that music and the things it 
had sung to him ! It made him conscious 
of all the emotion he had felt while he had 
put up the building on the hill. 

The joy of the builder swept over him 
like a wave. He was within the rising 
walls again, his hands among the grey-blue 
shapes, the measured stroke of the mallet 
swinging for the shifting chisel, the throb 
of steel going through his arms, the grind 
of stone was under his hands, the stone 
dust dry upon his lips, his eyes quick and 
keen, his arms bared, the shirt at his breast 
open, his whole body tense, tuned, to the 
desire of the conscious builder. . . 

Once more he moved about the carpet of 
splinters, the grateful crunch beneath his 
feet, his world a world of stubborn things, 
rejoicing in his power of direction and mas- 
tery over it all. And always at the back 


THE BUILDING 


201 


of his mind and blending itsalf with the 
work was the thought of a ship forging 
through the water at the harvest, a ship 
with white sails spread to the winds. Had 
not thought for the building come into his 
mind when dead things sprang to life in 
the resurrection of his hopes? 

Martin Cosgrave turned away from the 
gate. He walked down where the shadow 
of the mearing was faint upon the road. 
He turned up the boreen closed in by 
the still hedges. He stumbled over the 
ruts. He stood at the cabin door and looked 
up at the sky with soulless eyes. The ani- 
mation, the inspiration, that had vivified 
his face since the building had been begun 
had died. The face no longer expressed 
the idealist, the visionary. His eyes swept 
the sky for a purpose. It was the look of 
the man of the fields, the man who had 
thought for his crops, who was near to the 
soil. 

He had not looked a final and anxious, a 
peasant look, at the sky from his cabin- 
door in the night since he had embarked 
upon the building. He was conscious of 
that fact after a little. He wondered if it 
was a vague stirring in his heart that made 


202 


WAYSIDERS 


Kim do it, a vague craving for the old com- 
panionship of the fields this night of bitter- 
ness. They were the fields, the sod, the 
territory of his forefathers, the inheritance 
of his blood. Who was he that he should 
put up a great building on the hill? What 
if he had risen for a little on his wings 
above the common flock? 

The night air was heavy with the scent 
of the late dry harvest and all that the late 
dry harvest meant to the man nurtured on 
the side of a wet hill. The sheaves of corn 
were stooked in his neighbour’s fields. Yes- 
terday he had sacrificed the land to the 
building; to-morrow he would sacrifice the 
building to the land. Martin Cosgrave 
knew, the stars seemed to know, that a 
message, a voice, a command, would come 
like a wave through the generations of his 
blood sweeping him back to a common 
tradition. The cry for service on the land 
was beginning to stir somewhere. It would 
come to him in a word, a word sanctified 
upon the land by the memory of a thousand 
sacrifices and a thousand struggles, the only 
word that held magic for his race, the one 
word — Redemption ! He looked up at the 
building, made a vague motion of his hand 


THE BUILDING 203 

that was like an act of renunciation, and 
laughed a laugh of terrible bitterness. 

“ Look,” he cried, ” at the building 
Martin Cosgrave put up on the hill !” 

He moved to the cabin-door, his feet 
heavy upon the uneven ground as the feet 
of any of the generations of men who had 
ever gone that way before. He pressed the 
cabin-door with his fist. With a groan it 
went back shakily over the worn stone 
threshold, sticking when it was only a little 
way open. All was quiet, black, damp, 
terrible as chaos, inside. Martin Cosgrave 
hitched forward his left shoulder, went in 
sideways, and closed the crazy door against 
the pale world of moonlight outside. 













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